


Petrichor, and a Helpful Guide to Occlumency

by elioelioelioe (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amortentia, Angst, Animagus, Apprentice Harry Potter, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, Occlumency (Harry Potter), Self-Insert, Transfiguration (Harry Potter), Veritaserum
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:07:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26103943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/elioelioelioe
Summary: You've been noticeably apathetic since your return to Hogwarts for eighth year, and it either has to do with the Probity rule, upcoming Apprenticeships, or your recent capitulation to the charms of a one-time Death Eater, all-time Poncy Git.In other words, striking up a secret, definitely-not-friends with benefits relationship with Draco Malfoy probably wasn't the best idea, was it?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Reader
Comments: 26
Kudos: 67





	1. November

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains: enemies with benefits and romantic slow burn idiocy, lots of angst dear god, Hogwarts Apprenticeships, Animagus and Potions shenanigans, Draco teaching you Occlumency and being a real sh*t about it 
> 
> A warning of sorts: as of now, this fic contains only light sexual content of the sixteen-and-up variety. This may change in future chapters. Lots of swearing, though 
> 
> A/N: I usually post my fics on tumblr, so if it wasn't already clear I have no idea what I'm doing on ao3 lmao. Additionally, this fic is enemies-with-benefits. As a lover of slow burn, it physically pained me to write a kiss in the first 10,000 words, but the trope wants what it wants. Please bare with me tho, I promise the romance burn is excruciatingly restrained
> 
> In the first chapter, and probably the next one too, there's a lot of Golden Trio content, because, well, Gryffindor!reader, so it's kind of unavoidable. I do, however, plan to incorporate other characters much more as the fic goes on, and focus less on the Gryffindor crowd 
> 
> Finally, if you're here from tiktok, I love u xx
> 
> — this fic is also available on wattpad under the same username (elioelioelioe) —

****

You weren't quite sure when it had begun. Not the affair itself; you remembered every detail of that with staggering clarity—a kind of photographic recollection that would put even Hermione to shame. But the thoughts. The looks and the wanting, when had that started? You couldn't be quite sure.

You would, perhaps, have been able to recall the exact date if you were very hard pressed. But in truth, you preferred not to press yourself very hard on these types of things. You preferred not to poke and prod at your psyche, to try and unearth, from beneath layers of useless knowledge about turning tortoises into teacups and how to properly oil your wand, why and when you had started thinking about him.

Whatever the reason for the mental block, it didn't really matter. All else seemed to fade, like his soft, pallid hair, in comparison to the thoughts themselves. The stupid poncy smirk—you thought about that the most. And the hands, which were always cold, and quite aristocratic in their elegance, with delicate veins and plausible silver rings. Yes, you thought about them, too.

When you had things such as these to dwell on, it was easy to push others from your mind. Why they'd come to you in the first place, for one. Whether you ought to, morally speaking, be thinking them at all, for another. And, of course, the one you tried not to think about the most. What those who sat nearest you, faces ranging orange to vermillion in the hazy, fire-lit glow of the Gryffindor common room, would say if they knew.

You sometimes worried (it was hard not to) whether they did. Surely they had their suspicions that something was going on. As much as you tried to give nothing away, there was no denying you'd... changed, somewhat, in the last month or so.

Your thoughts were persistently occupied with topics decidedly un-Gryffindorian. You'd stopped giving much of a toss about Quidditch, forgetting to put your name in for the house wide tip entirely (you didn't really mind, regardless. It'd been boring the last few seasons—Puddlemere thrashed all else to a pulp continually and ruthlessly). You'd become increasingly inattentive in class, and were, as a result, indifferent to Mcgonagall's suggestion that a select few students (yourself plus, of course, Hermione, the Chosen One and his red-haired sidekick—there were others too, that you weren't bothered to recall) begin attempting their Animagus form. You hadn't been to see Hagrid in weeks...

"Alright?" said Dean. You lifted your head from your knees to give a slight nod.

"Having trouble with the whole Animagus thing?" Hermione sat near the fire, legs crossed on a tasseled pillow. Ron sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders. The pillow's gold printed case was almost the same shade as his hair. More orangey, though. More like that nauseating carrot colour of the Chudley Cannons banner he'd insisted on tacking to the notice board. You almost laughed to yourself.

"Yeah," you said, although you'd barely thought of Mcgonagall's proposal since she'd proposed it.

"I think you should do it. You still want to be an Apprentice, don't you? And you were considering Transfigurations?"

You nodded. A familiar, _why-in-Merlin's-name-would-you-_ choose _-to-spend-the-next-two -years-of-your-life-at-school_ grimace flashed across Ron's face. He hastily rearranged it into a supportive smile when he saw you looking.

"So, this'll count as an intensive study, won't it? All the more reason to do it."

"Yeah, go on," said Ron. "It'll be fun."

"It's not supposed to be _fun_ ," Hermione said witheringly. "It's a higher form of magic. It's staggeringly difficult."

"Tell that to Sirius and his lot," Ron said, pointing at Harry's back.

"Special circumstances," insisted Hermione, "and highly unethical, if you ask me."

Ron rolled his eyes. He seemed to know he'd induced a lecture and sat back on his cushion, resigned to his fate. You didn't mind. They had closed in on each other again, leaving you to drift back into your own thoughts.

Maybe they put your apathy down to post battle blues. But you'd all begun to recover from those months prior, before the start of the new term, even, and things were slowly returning to normal. And so you circled back around in your own head once again, to the conclusion that they must know something.

Hermione, Harry, Ron. Luna, who somehow always knew the passwords to your common room, and seemed to have almost entirely abandoned her Ravenclaw heritage, Lav, Dean, the lot. It seemed incredulous to you that you could keep such a secret from them, especially in the new, affectionate climate that dominated the House of the Lion.

(In previous years, the Gryffindor lot had separated themselves quite cleanly into little factions—Harry and Ron and Hermione. Parvati and Lavender. Dean and Seamus. Neville and his Herbology textbooks. Since the war, however, these alliances, already convulsed by those who hadn't returned for eighth year, took on a nagging aura of the trivial, and the lines separating them obscured beyond recognition. Evenings in the common room were no longer spent in huddled, disparate pairs, but one rowdy circle, with bottles of Fire Whiskey nicked from Slughorn's stores being passed round and round. It was nice when you had felt a part of it all. It was lovely, actually, to see the camaraderie none of you had really felt since third year reignited. All was well, all was good, until you'd begun to drift from the herd, close in on yourself. Until the warm lights and loud laughs made you feel vaguely ill, and you craved, more than anything the cool, quiet release of him _..._ )

"Why even bother? An otter is a bloody useless Animagus form," Ron was now saying.

"A wizard's Animagus is not necessarily determined by their Patronus," recited Hermione. You checked her hands for her Advanced Transfiguration textbook, but it seemed she'd just memorised the whole thing. Figured. "You should probably know that if you want to become one."

Ron muttered something unflattering out of the corner of his mouth.

"And it's not useless," she went on. "Otters are highly skilled creatures."

Ron scoffed, said; "At what?" Harry had stopped talking to Lavender and both were looking on in amusement. (There had been a brief concern, early on, when Hermione and Ron returned from summer hols decidedly single, that their romantic demise would disrupt the peace of the new term. These worries, however, had been short lived. Their two week stint apart ended as abruptly as it had begun, with Harry declaring loudly about the common room that he'd found them both in Ron's bed. You remembered Hermione's scarlet face as she scolded him, and Ron standing behind her, trying desperately not to chuckle.)

Hermione pondered this for a minute, then said; "opening shells." And then "piss off," when Ron started to laugh.

"Still," she turned back to you. "I think you should try. You're top at Transfigurations."

"And shit at everything else," you said. This wasn't, strictly speaking, true. You'd earned an Outstanding in Potions, even under Snape's oppressive rule, and had always fared well in Defence. But, like most things, your studies had become increasingly irrelevant lately. Transfigurations was the only thing besides Charms (which was piss weak magic, really. Even Filch could do it) you seemed to be able to wrap your head around.

"Oh, piss off. Say you'll try."

"Yeah. I'll try."

It wasn't impossible that they knew, even though they said nothing and you'd said nothing and made bloody sure he hadn't either. _He_ was a Legilimens. It was how the whole tawdry thing between the two of you had started. ("You're thinking about me, again," he'd said). Perhaps that's why you were so paranoid that your thoughts weren't all your own—they had been plundered once before, and look where that had gotten you.

You suggested this to yourself. Insisted you were being unreasonable. But it didn't really help, not at all. And so your discomfort in your own house, your own common room, your own dorm, grew. You felt at least a little uneasy, always, in the presence of your classmates and the void, one only you seemed to be able to see, opened, casting a wide breadth of inky black abyss between yourself and your fellow Gryffindors.

"I think I'd like to be a bird. It'd be nice, being able to fly and stuff," Dean said.

Seamus shrugged. "Buy a broom."

Dean kicked out at him. "You're just miffed Mcgonagall didn't ask you, you prat."

"Am not."

"Strictly speaking," said Luna, removing her Spectrespecs and sitting up. "You don't need her permission, Seamus."

"True," agreed Neville, who also hadn't been chosen, and Harry, who had.

"You're not even doing N.E.W.T. Transfigurations, Neville," said Hermione, looking utterly horrified at the prospect of such mass and egregious rule breaking. "And you!" she groused, pulling the pillow from beneath herself and whacking Harry in the chest with it.

"Gerroff," he protested. "Everyone should be able to have a go, shouldn't they? That's all I'm saying."

Hermione looked incredulous.

You. A _Gryffindor_. A pillar of integrity and morality and loyalty to one's friends. What a joke. What _piss_. You knew Harry had long held qualms about whether he had Sorted wrong (although ones that had been well and truly reconciled since the battle) and lately, as the void gaped, you'd begun to wonder whether you might've too.

He would do that to you, the intolerable ponce. Make you doubt your standing in a house you'd found nothing but comfort and kinship in for eight bloody years, just because he was very fit. It was alright for him; the deception, the debauchery, the self preservation. _He_ wouldn't be sitting somewhere down below, amongst the cool smooth stones, and the caged lights, and the silver and green, wondering if he belonged and growing increasingly aware that he did not. It was what he was, altruism, cunning, secrecy, and he had Sorted accordingly. But not you. It really wasn't fair at all, when you thought about it.

"Probity, Hermione," Harry pointed at her accusingly.

Hermione gave a violent shake of her head. "Doesn't apply," she said.

"Does too."

"I _invented_ Probity, Harry. I think you'll find that it doesn't."

(Ah, Probity. A somewhat ironic term Hermione had come up with in the first few weeks back at Hogwarts. There had been, naturally, much to talk about. The Battle, and the aftermath, and the silent aperture of those who hadn't returned for eighth year, by choice or otherwise. And everyone wanted to know, of course, where exactly Harry and Ron and Hermione had been all of those months, and they wanted to know _what_ exactly the Carrows (sadistic fucks) had been up to while they were gone. Probity, in its inception, had kind of just meant 'no secrets'. It kind of just meant 'let's talk about all the shit that's happened to us in the last few years'. Since then, it had accumulated various other connotations.

_No judgement;_ "Probity," Seamus had requested sheepishly, before revealing the blackened ring he'd torched into the couch with a misguided Incendio.

_We have to talk about this;_ "Probity, Ronald!" Hermione had demanded when Ron refused to tell her why he was in such a foul mood that he'd flung a Levicorpus at Dean. (It was about Quidditch. Go figure.)

_I have something to tell you_ ; "Erm, Probity," said Harry to the eighth year circle, one ingongruously cold night in early November. "I think I might like blokes. As well as girls, you know."

"Is that why you broke up with Ginny?" Ron had replied.

Lavender shook her head. "Merlin, Ron, have you no tact?"

Probity, in essence, had come to mean 'talk and listen', and all that came with it.)

_Fucking Probity._ You had a sneaking suspicion that it would take more than a quaint little bonding exercise to get you off the hook, should anyone discover the real reason for your recent laconism.

"You're being very judgemental, 'Mione. Not very Probity at all," Ron countered. Hermione shirked his arm from her shoulders.

"Oh, well that's very well and good then. Let's all become Animagi. Can't be that hard, can it? We'll get the first years involved. Run a clinic. Dumbledore's Army Take Two, yeah?"

"Oh, c'mon Hermione," Dean said. "Harry was just saying that we've all proven that we're capable. Doesn't seem fair that some of us get to try and others don't."

"I suppose," Hermione muttered tersely, somewhat mollified. It was very hard to argue with Dean.

She settled back into Ron, still huffy, but smiling begrudgingly at the little birds he'd charmed to fly around her head. "Better than yours, I reckon," he was saying. "And they're not murderous little buggers, either. I've still got the scars from that, you know..."

Come two am, the common room had almost cleared. Eighth years were the enviable exceptions to rules as slight as curfews, everyone knew that. The early weeks of term, none of you had really slept—why would you? There was much to discuss (hence Probity), and the elves in the kitchens treated you like wounded heroes, plying you with all the necessary supplies for midnight escapades. Professors turned a blind eye to most everything you did. (So accommodating they were, that it became something of a pastime amongst the senior students to try and vex them. Between Neville's Bubotuber squirting pus at Trelawney to Lavender Brown setting an Incendio charm on Slughorn's newest jar of sugared pineapple with little more than a half-hearted scolding as a result, you had started to believe that nothing would work. That you, as the survivors of the war, classmates of the Chosen One, really could do no wrong. This was, of course, bullshit, and the game had come to an abrupt end when Seamus earned himself a weeks' detention for filling Mcgonagall's Headmistress quarters with a metric fuck ton of muggle catnip. She hadn't been amused.) Just like the appeal of causing trouble for the fun of it paled after a few weeks, so too did the novelty of staying up just because you could. Most drifted upstairs around one.

"Night," Lavender patted your head as she passed.

"G'night," Dean and Seamus said in unison, apparently reconciled.

By two-thirty, you alone watched the fire dwindle, the wood turn glowing crimson, and reignite itself every few minutes with an enthusiastic crackle, thinking about (and wishing you weren't) Draco Malfoy, in his bed, in the depths of the Castle.

xx

Old Slughorn had told you something rather interesting as you were packing up your cauldron at the end of class one day in early September. (For context, it was important to understand that repeating eighth years had returned to Hogwarts to find certain adjustments had been made to accommodate their unprecedented return. Most were inconsequential—minor tweaks to timetables, a little rejigging of the prefect scheme—while others were quite the opposite. You had, for example, been plucked from the sprawling, raucous house tables you'd sat at since first year and deposited at one of all your own.)

The common rooms, according to Slughorn, had almost been similarly condensed. It made sense, he said, as there were so few of you (although a decent amount of the Gryffindor lot had returned, hardly a quarter of the other three Houses had) and you returned under such unique circumstances. It didn't really mean a whole lot to you, at the time. The plan never eventuated; the Gryffindor crowd remained in their cosy, comfortable tower, same as they always had. You had relayed the information with according passivity in the common room that night, to murmurs of amusement and mild disgust at the prospect of being lumped in with some of the more pestilent Slytherins.

Now, however, as you ate breakfast at the eighth form table in the Great Hall, you clung to the words Slughorn had spoken that afternoon. You forced yourself to think of their implication, to remember—it could have been much worse—as you watched Malfoy butter his toast.

"'Lo," said Hermione, stepping over the bench and into the empty space between Lavender and yourself.

You turned your head away from him so your eyes would be obliged to follow. "Hi."

Hermione waved at the cluster of Gryffindors across the table. "Hey, listen. I've just been to see Mcgonagall—"

"—when?" Ron's freckled face creased. "It's barely half eight."

Hermione dismissed him with a flutter of her hand, and continued talking. "She's going to call a meeting after class on Thursday afternoon." She paused here and looked about the crowded table. "For, you know."

"Animagus students?" you said. This interested you—you forgot, for a minute, about him and his neatly buttered toast.

Hermione looked across the table—Dean, Harry, Ron, Luna looked back. She cast a silent Muffliato, and nodded.

"Perf," said Dean. "Can't wait."

"Does anyone remember who else'll be there?"

Hermione, naturally, was able to answer Harry's question. She remembered the names of all eight students Mcgonagall had rounded up and rattled them off in hushed tones. "Macmillian, Zabini, Morag Macdougal and the five of us."

"We're the only Gryffindors?" Ron sounded rather chuffed.

"And a Ravenclaw," you supplied. Luna nodded.

"That's right," said Dean. He opened his mouth to continue, but then seemed to notice Seamus looking rather dejected from two spots down and got out of his seat to talk to him.

"Excited?" said Luna, quite dreamily, and to no one in particular.

"Yeah," you said. "Think so."

"What do we think everyones'll be?" Harry said.

"Yours, mate?" said Ron. "Gotta be a guinea pig, or something pissy like that."

"Fuck off," Harry barked. "Oh, I know what yours'll be."

"What?"

He grinned deviously, and you knew what he was going to say before he said it. Hermione did, too, she mouthed it as Harry did— _spider_.

Ron paled, as if the word itself would conjure up a swarm. "Git," he shoved Harry. "That's not funny."

"What if Hermione's Animagus is a spider, Ron?" you said. "Deal breaker, then?"

He nodded solemnly.

"Mine's a white wolf," said Luna, punctuating Hermione's shriek of protest. You looked over at her with a start, having almost forgotten she was there. (Luna had a disarming habit of fading into the background of conversations, even those she had started. It wasn't that she was forgettable—quite the opposite, with her intricate silver braids and gaudy pink glasses on a beaded chain at her collar. It seemed a gift, with Luna, like it was deliberate. It gave everything she said an odd, whimsical sense of purpose. When she did speak, she became clarified. And distinct.) "With black ears."

You all looked at her, nonplussed. She blinked plainly.

"But Luna," Hermione frowned. "You can't possibly _know_ what yours is already."

"Oh, I do. I'm quite right," Luna said softly. The furrow in Hermione's brow deepened. She seemed tempted to push it, and so you nudged her gently under the table. Ron hastily changed the subject to the new Defence teacher, and Hermione begrudgingly joined in.

You, however, had no interest in the young Auror the Ministry had sent to fill the post until someone more permanent arrived.

Malfoy's chin rested on clasped hands. You looked away steeply. You didn't have a problem with being close to him, _obviously_. In fact, something deep within you felt satisfied, always, by his presence. He didn't calm you, that wasn't it. But it was like you'd swallowed a Sneakoscope, and it only stopped whirring and chuffing inside of you when he was close by. (But it was still there, if that made any sense. You were quite sure that it did not.) And so your desperate dislike of the new seating arrangement, which thrust you into his proximity more than ever before, perplexed you.

Perhaps it was the context—something about witnessing him on his own, outside of you. The things he did of his own volition. The timbre of his voice when he spoke to his friends, his innate little behaviours—the details of which had forced their inexorable way into your consciousness. If you could forget that he drank only from glass goblets, and that his silver signet ring clinked softly against the sides when he did, and that his table manners were impeccable, and he folded his napkin twice over at the end of every meal, you would. These things you knew about Malfoy felt like extensions of the boy himself, that you carried with you all the time. You didn't like it. You really didn't.

The feeling was not dissimilar, in actuality, to having your mind properly invaded. You'd only experienced this once, at his hands as well, which only went to show. (A dizziness that seemed desperate to take over, but restrained itself; crouching in the back of your head. "You're thinking about me, again.")

"Maybe I should make him a necklace or something. To make him feel welcome."

"With a little carrot on it, perhaps?" Ron deadpanned.

If Luna knew he was taking the piss, she showed no sign of it. "I think he'd like that."

"What's this?" you said.

Hermione gave you a slightly quizzical look, and you felt a familiar tug of guilt behind your navel. She couldn't have seen you looking at him, could she? "Luna wants to give the new Defence teacher a present. Make him feel at home."

"Ron's feeling awfully helpful so he suggested a carrot," Harry said, and Ron shrugged.

"I'm a helpful bloke."

"How do you grow such small radishes?" you said to Luna, admiring her eccentric earrings.

She looked dotingly at the head table. "Hagrid tends them for me."

Ron and Harry lost it at this; the thought of Hagrid, whose big, clumsy fingers were about as gentle as Blast-Ended Skrewt, nurturing the pea-sized radishes that hung from Luna's earlobes. She smiled good naturedly as they laughed.

The nine o'clock bell clanged overhead, and Hermione reached across the table to seize Ron's hand.

"Stop giggling, yeah? We've got Potions."

You glanced his way compulsively as you stood up, and felt a vestige of shock in your stomach. Your eyes had locked fleetingly. He never caught your gaze, unless he wanted to speak to you. You lingered at the emptying table.

"Coming?" said Harry.

You shook your head fervently. "You go on, I've lost a quill. _Go on_ , you'll be late."

You hadn't lost a quill; you hadn't brought one. But there was a deliberate set to his grey eyes, you were sure of it. He wanted to speak to you, and so you crouched for a minute, until you were certain the eighth year crowd would have reached the front of the bottleneck and spilled out into the halls, before picking up your books and joining the throng yourself. Your intuition paid off. No one saw him approach you in the deluge of dark robes.

"Thursday, yeah?" He smelt like mint. He always smelt a bit like mint.

"'ve got a meeting after classes."

"Later, then."

You nodded. He slunk off, emerging from a stream of first years, brushing non existent crumbs from his jumper. You watched him go, turning your head as the swarm ebbed and flowed. The tilt of his hips in soft, grey trousers. He carried his leather bound books in one hand. He looked tall when he walked. There was something rather elegant about it—the set of his shoulders—broad and refined.

As you watched Malfoy walk away, something rather curious occurred to you. Macmillian, Zabini, Morag Macdougal. You'd reached the landing of the first staircase, and could no longer see his retreating back. That's what Hermione had said; _Macmillian, Zabini, Morag Macdougal. Y_ ou would have to remember to ask him about it, when you met atop the Astronomy Tower come Thursday night.

xx

"Attempting to become an Animagus is not something to be taken lightly. It is a long, arduous process; one which many deem too strenuous, too difficult, or too high risk to complete." Professor Mcgonagall stood at the front of the vast, high-ceilinged Transfigurations room, observing the small cluster of students in front of her over the rims of square spectacles. She always looked rather foreboding when she addressed her class, and now there were so few of you, her stern gaze felt hyper-concentrated. As you watched her speak, you were reminded of, and more than a little intimidated by, the knowledge that Minerva Mcgonagall had achieved her Animagus form at only seventeen years old. "I have selected you eight for this private extension of your studies because I believe you possess the necessary skill and dexterity for such a task. I may add that this course can be considered an intensive study—the completion of which is a requirement for any who wish to become an Transfigurations Apprentice at the end of this year."

Hermione gave a little _I-was-right_ sniff.

Ron affected a gag.

Nothing changes.

(It had been a fairly uneventful few days, in the lead up to the first meeting of the intimate little group. Slughorn had requested his Potions students source their own Flobberworm Mucus for Tuesday's class, so much of the night prior had been spent by yourself and Hermione trying to coax some out of Hagrid. The Auror (what was his name? Something Atlo? Sterling, that was it) who'd been sent to fill the Defence position was young and attractive, so, naturally his first few classes were derailed by Lavender Brown's giggling and a steady stream of questions regarding the various scars on his veined, calloused hands. Homework came steadily, as always, and you preferred to take yours down to the library most nights, returning through the portrait hole past eleven to a much quieter common room. This suited you. You liked the time alone and the quiet to think, and you had a lot to think about. He'd kept his slate grey eyes to himself since Monday morning. Besides, you found it politic to keep your study habits (and your whereabouts in general) ambiguous, these days.)

There was a shuffle of robes from behind you. "Well I, Professor, would like to thank you for this opportunity," said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, with his usual grating pomposity. "I think I speak for everyone (you could already tell that he did not,) when I say that your faith in us is rousing."

" _Knob_ ," you muttered, and thought you were hearing double until you realised it was Ron who'd said the same.

"Thank you, Macmillian," Mcgonagall said, looking fairly unsympathetic to his earnest praise.

He nodded graciously and retook his seat.

"I understand the prospect is exciting," Professor Mcgonagall pressed on. "But you must remember; although the transformation itself is technical, there is a great deal of theory behind the art of the Animagi." Most of the faces around the room fell. Hermione's did not. In fact, she looked to Ron with a triumphant smirk.

"Which of you is able to tell me, for example, what exactly makes this branch of magic so difficult? Yes, Ms Granger."

Hermione's arm had shot into the air so quickly it seemed no one else even saw it go. She began to talk rapidly. "Well, firstly, it's time consuming—the spell takes months to complete, and if even one element is off, the process has to be started all over again. And it's dangerous, too. If the steps aren't followed with complete exactitude, the results can be disastrous."

"How so?" Mcgonagall prompted.

"Permanent half-human, half-animal mutations. Even death, I've read in some cases."

"Quite right, Ms Granger, quite right," Mcgonagall nodded. "There is significant risk involved in the process, as there is with many other magical endeavours. It is up to each of you alone to decide whether the task is worthy of it. However, I may add that if you follow the steps correctly and with my guidance, such disasters should be able to be cleanly avoided."

The Ravenclaw, Morag Macdougal, had her hand in the air. Mcgonagall nodded.

"When will we get to start trying?"

"Patience," said Mcgonagall, "is key to the process. As Ms Granger identified, the actual spell takes months to complete, and significant preparation must be done before attempting it."

You heard the scratch of ink on parchment and looked around, suddenly concerned that you should be taking notes. You were relieved, however, to see that no one except Hermione had even picked up their quills. All eyes were fixed on Mcgonagall.

"And I must warn you all now, to brace yourselves for disappointment. There have only been seven registered(Ron and Harry snickered here) Animagi in the last century, so I am by no means expecting that all of you achieve your form, and nor should you. History dictates only one of you will be able to successfully complete the process in such a small amount of time."

"Wonder who that'll bloody be," Ron muttered, as Hermione scribbled copious notes at his side.

"Not you, Mr Weasley, I suspect, if you continue to speak while I am," Professor Mcgonagall said curtly. Ron gave her a sober glance and bit his lip.

"Now, who can tell me the difference between the Animagi and other forms of self-transfiguration? Metamorphmagus, for example."

"Please, Professor," Hermione said, her hand in the air. Mcgonagall nodded. "A Metamorphagus is born—they don't need to learn or perform any spells to be able to change their appearance. And it's not just animal transformations they can do. They can change their hair colours and facial features, too. All sorts of things."

"Indeed. What else?"

You thought back to the Triwizard tournament of fourth year, when that Quidditch player from Durmstrang who'd fancied Hermione had botched a shark head spell. "Temporary Transfigurations, Professor," you said. "A wizard can Transfigure themselves partially or fully using a regular transformative spell."

"And how does this differ from an Animagus transformation?"

"The effects are temporary, and the caster will always need a wand. And they can choose the animal they want to turn into."

"Excellent," said Mcgonagall. "And it brings me to my next point quite concisely."

"You might have some competition for Animagus of the decade, Hermione," said Harry with his hand over his mouth.

"Shove off," you advised.

"A witch or wizard can not select their Animagus form—it is tied closely to their soul, and is almost impossible to determine pre-transformation." You looked over at Luna, wondering whether she would dare interrupt Mcgonagall's low, stern voice to contradict this. She evidently did not think it wise, because she remained silent, staring obliquely at the classroom's rear wall. Hermione's hand shot up, she had a question about Patronus compatibility. _Whatever that was_. Ernie Macmillian took it upon himself to congratulate Mcgonagall on her youth in accomplishing her own form, once again prefacing his blatant brown-nosing by saying 'I think I speak for all of us'. _No, you don't, you prat._

You looked from Ernie's flushed face to the stoic Blaise Zabini who sat by his side, though didn't look at all pleased about it. Zabini was the only Slytherin present, and this again reminded you of what you planned to ask Malfoy when you saw him later tonight. You turned back around when Blaise caught your eye. Slytherins of any sort made you nervous lately, but especially those who you knew to be Malfoy's closest friends. Of those who had returned for eighth year (Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, Zabini, Nott and Malfoy himself) most were exactly those you knew he would confide in, if he ever did decide to tell anyone, and this fact did little to ease your nerves. You brushed a hand over the back of your head, weary that a gaze may rest there.

Macmillian had finally stopped talking. Mcgonagall's lips were pursed - you suspected she was having slight regrets over his inclusion in the group (but Ernie was one of the best Transfigurations students in the school, so what could she really do?), and the chalk resting on the sill of the board behind her had begun to write. _STAGES OF ANIMAGUS TRANSFORMATION,_ it printed in neatly slanted letters. This, you deduced you should copy down, as the rustle of parchment being pulled from satchels sounded about the room.

"There are five key stages to the Animagus Transformation," Mcgonagall said. Five words appeared behind her as she spoke, and the scratching of quills reached a crescendo. You copied each out carefully; _DIVINATION, MANDRAGORA, POTION, TEMPEST, CASTING._

"I'm sure many of you will recognise these words from your passing studies of Animagi in previous years, however, the curriculum is careful not to be too explicit about what each stage details. I'm sure you can all deduce why." Mcgonagall paused here to give Harry and Ron a stern look.

"We haven't bloody done anything," muttered Ron as she turned away.

"I assume you can all read the five stages on the board for yourselves. Can any of you provide the rest of the class with some further details?"

Hermione put up her hand. "For which ones, Professor?"

"As many as you can, Ms Granger," replied Mcgonagall, and the slight tug of her lips implied she already knew that Hermione could probably recite the entire textbook, if given the opportunity.

"Well, Divination is a form of visualisation. The stage requires connecting with the spirit of one's Animagus form. Mandragora refers to the Genus Mandrake. The second stage involves holding the leaf of it's flower in one's mouth from full moon to full moon, to be used in the third stage; Potion.

"The potion has to be prepared in range of the moon's pure rays and left until Tempest—an electrical storm. The last stage can be completed at the commencement of Tempest, preceding which the incantation _Amato Animo Animato Animagus_ needs to be repeated twice daily. During the storm, the incantination needs to be repeated a final time, the Potion needs to be consumed, and the Animagus spell can be Cast, completing the fifth and final stage."

Hermione's cheeks were flushed pink by the time she finished speaking. The rest of the class was silent. You were sure you weren't the only one feeling a little cowed—it seemed Ron was right. If the odds were stacked for only one of you, surely that one would be Hermione.

Mcgonagall didn't seem to notice the slight melancholy that had fallen over the room. She _actually smiled_ at Hermione, and said "very good, Ms Granger," who ducked her head bashfully in response.

"Ms Granger has done an excellent job of summarizing the five stages for us. I want you all to become familiar with these - we will be spending several classes discussing each in depth, beginning, of course, with Divination."

Dean widened his eyes dreamily and placed an encircled finger in front of each in a rather convincing impression of Professor Trelawney. Harry tugged the end of Hermione's scarf around his shoulders like a shawl and shuddered.

"Not that kind of Divination, Potter," Mcgonagall said stiffly, hesitating just too little to mask her eagerness in making the distinction. It was no secret—the poor view she took of Professor Trelawney and her subject on the whole. "Although the root of the word is much the same."

Hermione pulled her scarf back acrimoniously and stuffed it into her satchel.

"This kind of Divination is quite different. It has nothing to do with looking outwards, and predicting what is to come, but rather looking inwards, and seeing what is already there."

You couldn't help but raise your eyebrows. You'd never heard Mcgonagall speak with anything less than a bracing forthrightness. She was beginning to sound alarmingly poetic.

"What I mean by this," she said, adjusting her spectacles, "is that the first stage of an Animagus transformation is about self exploration."

Blaise Zabini chuckled softly behind you.

"There is no technical skill involved, as such. However, the Divination stage is often a good indicator of who will be able to best achieve their form."

"What do we actually have to do, though?"

"I _was_ getting to that, Mr Thomas. Divination must take place somewhere quiet, free of all distractions. The mind needs to be as clear as possible. See, the aim of Divination is to connect with one's inner animal. Our more complex human emotions and anxieties need to be shed for this to be achieved, and only then can one experience a true affinity with their Animagus form."

Surely it couldn't be that easy? It sounded just like a meditation, and you used to do those all the time when you had trouble sleeping over the holidays.

"Don't be fooled," Mcgonagall said quickly. "Divination is not as easy as it sounds. It is by no means any less complex than any other stage of the spell, and is absolutely crucial." She couldn't be a Legilimens, could she? You wouldn't put it past her. You shook your head. _Stop being so bloody paranoid_.

"How can we tell, Professor? When we've connected with our form?" Said Morag.

"There is no real criteria for knowing when the stage has been completed. For some, months of contemplation is needed. Others mere hours. When it happens, you'll know."

Luna, who had once again slipped seamlessly out of your awareness, spoke for the first time. "It's eight o'clock, Professor," she said.

Mcgonagall turned to the clock behind her. "Right you are, Ms Lovegood. I want you all to be taking an hour each day for Divination. Find an isolated space, as I have said, and practice emptying your mind as best you can. Be patient—the only way to achieve this stage is with dedication and time."

Heads nodded earnestly all around you. People were standing up, grabbing their scarves and satchels.

Mcgonagall cleared her throat as everyone started for the door. "I'll say it once again—don't expect too much of yourselves. I don't suppose we will even begin discussing Mandragora until after Christmas break."

xx

"Her faith in us _is_ rousing, isn't it," you muttered to Dean as you passed through the big, hewn archway and into the hall.

"Smashing, I'd say," said Ron, in a deep, hearty voice. "And isn't the opportunity simply splendacious?"

"Indeed, Ronald, _quite_ right." Harry raised both hands in the air and bowed his head graciously. "And I think I speak for all of us when I say that your views on the subject are just spot on. Top notch, really."

Dean exploded in a snort and Hermione struck him with her bag. "You'll get Peeves down here if you don't bloody shut up."

"You seem to do an awful lot of whacking, Hermione, had you noticed?" Dean said, rubbing his side.

But her blow evidently did not make much of an impression, because Ron's uncanny impression of Macmillian had Dean howling until the lot of you stumbled through the portrait hole and into the Gryffindor common room. He and Harry joined the circle of eighth years in the centre almost immediately, responding to their eager pleas to hear what transpired in Mcgonagall's exclusive study group. Ron and Hermione found a dim, vacated corner, and Ron dropped his head into her lap with tender languor. You waited a minute, until it seemed everyone had settled into their own private doings, before slipping back out the portrait hole and onto the quiet, empty landing.

xx

The Astronomy Tower had become your choice meeting place by way of habit and pure convenience. It was where he found you, the first few times, and from then on it became the only spot that really made sense. There was a little round stone shelter off to the side of the vast, smooth floor which suited your needs quite nicely, and no privacy could ever be found in the common rooms or dorms unless you were willing to skive off lessons. You both seemed to agree that this would not be very wise in your final year of schooling. (Besides, it was quite nice up there. He was impressively adept at wandless magic and flung up warming and Muffliato charms with a casual proficiency that you found inexplicably (and irritatingly) arousing, so the cold was never a bother. You liked stars. You liked being close to them. You knew, though you couldn't recall how, that he was named after a constellation. The Dragon. It didn't entirely suit, you thought. Maybe a siren, or some sleek, silent bird. Or a serpent, though that felt a little on the nose.)

You saw his legs, first, as you rounded the last few steps in the parapet. He was standing against one of the tower's high bronze railings, ankles crossed. Maddeningly poised. The wards were already up—you could see them rippling faintly in the moonlight, dappling his sleek blonde corona.

"Took your time," he said, as you reached the main floor.

"I had a very exclusive meeting to attend."

"Right," he snickered softly. He was already moving towards the shelter.

"I've got to be back before long. Mill wants my help with her Charms homework." There was an inflection of slight disdain that sent a thrill right through you. You loved it, for some reason, when he was a twat. Perhaps it made it easier to prevent the blossoming of an affection beyond the physical—you weren't sure.

"Well, we wouldn't want to keep Mill waiting, would we?" You were at the rickety wooden door, now, and he flung it open with a jerk of his wrist. Another, and the neatly stacked brass telescopes and scrolls of lunar calendars that were stored in the shelter flew out and skidded across the stone floor.

"No," he said, pushing you backwards until your shoulder blades met smooth, round wall. "We wouldn't."

Draco Malfoy's lips were cool, and soft, and he tasted so familiarly of mint and citrus and coffee and _forest_ that it made you guilty. _Just once_ , you'd told yourself, and then _just once more_. How many times had it been? It was getting harder to remember...

Brisk, clean air met the bare skin of your abdomen. His deft fingers had undone your trousers while his lips still pressed to yours. They skated across your hip bones. Strayed determinedly from the band of your underwear. You wanted him to—you wished he would, but he'd said he didn't have much time and he'd obviously meant it. You reached for his waist, instead, running your hands over the taught, easy curve of his torso.

He kissed you a bit more—you could feel the familiar, tender, purple bruises forming on the swells of your lips—and then dipped his head to your neck, slick tongue, warm breath, the tender skin below your ear. You withdrew your hands from underneath his shirt and pitched them above you, expletives coming steadily and softly and low as he nipped at the column of your throat. You weren't sure where his hands were. It seemed impossible to pull your focus from his mouth. Rapture was warping your lower stomach, and with it your common sense. _Just let him_ , you urged yourself, thinking of how it would feel to take a piece of him with you, down the parapet and back to your dorm. You had to force yourself to push softly down on the top of his head.

"No marks," you muttered as composedly as you could, though it pained you to do so.

He breathed a response—" _naturally_ ," and with a final few nips at your throat, dropped to his knees.

His hands were so _easy_ , his fingers soft, cool, dappling your ribcage and your breasts with their prints as he kissed his way across your lower stomach and you brought yours to ravel his soft, sleek hair. You could feel the ghost of him lower, and you suddenly felt like kicking yourself for not running from that stupid meeting as soon as you had the chance. _Who cares about becoming an Animagus_ , you thought, as Draco slid your trousers down a little further so he could kiss at your thighs. _You could've had him properly if you'd come sooner._

It must have been an hour, perhaps two, or three, or the wards he set to block out the cold and the noise could have been glinting in the opalescent morning light instead of that from far away stars, before he stood up. He dragged your trousers back over your hips as he went, cloaking the wet stamps left by his lips. He was still kissing you softly on the jaw, and you felt around for his shirt buttons in the dimness. Cool fingers seized your wrist and placed your hand back at your side. You exhaled heavily. Reached for his belt, instead. Fumbled blindly with the heavy silver buckle. He impeded you once more.

"Stop trying to take my clothes off," he paused his kisses to mutter. "We haven't got time."

You threw your head back in frustration, which hurt, because the stone wall lay behind you. He kissed you twice more on the neck, gentler than before, and then stepped back.

"I've got to go," Draco said.

You nodded. The places where his lips had met your bare skin felt more alive than everything else in you, humming with static. It was almost enough to distract you from the dull, forgotten ache below.

Not quite, though.

He turned for the open doorway, and you followed, watching the spare muscles in his back as he tucked in his shirt .

"I suppose there's some jovial festivities in the Gryffindor common room you'll be wanting to rush back to?" Malfoy said. He was being a twat again, and this brought you a little closer to the ground, though you still couldn't bring yourself to speak. You began doing up your buttons.

"Fucking Blaise," barked Malfoy, so suddenly you almost jumped. He was staring intently at his left hand, and the pale, slender finger that held his Slytherin House ring.

"What's Zabini done?" You said.

"He's Transfigured my ring." Malfoy turned his delicate wrist so you could see. "It says Hufflepuff, see?" The dark silver stripe of the little badger on the crest rippled in the moonlight.

You snorted softly. "That's funny," you said.

"Oh yeah, terribly funny," Malfoy muttered darkly, his aristocratic little nose wrinkling with an equally haughty disdain. "Really witty. Honestly, I should just pitch the thing right off." He leaned close to the railings, observing the inky black breadth of the grounds far below.

"Here's an idea," you said. "Transfigure it back."

Malfoy shook his head "He'll have done it so I can't. He's an irksome little prick but rather good at Transfigurations."

_Well that figured,_ you thought. _Considering he was one of the eight—_

"—oh," you cut yourself off, remembering suddenly.

"What?" He wasn't looking at you, instead eyeing his ring with utter contempt. Sodding elitist.

"Why weren't you there tonight?" You asked, like you'd meant to since breakfast on Monday, when Hermione had supplied the names of the other three Animagus students. Malfoy's was absent, and this you found peculiar, because it arose frequently enough in Hermione's incongruous mumblings about who she had to beat out to top each class for you to know he was seriously intelligent.

("Why've you got Malfoy's name circled?" Ron had said one night in the library before the first Potions test of the year, pointing to the class list that lay by Hermione's books.

She snatched the parchment from him irritably. "Because," she said, nose so close to her textbook that all you could see of her was a bushel of brown hair, "he's the best Potions student in our year. Have to score better than him if I want a chance at duxxing it."

"I didn't know Malfoy was good at Potions." Ron said, fair brows drawn.

"Of course he is," Hermione snapped. "He's top in Transfigurations too, and that test's next week, so if you could kindly piss off and let me study, I might have a chance at beating him."

"Don't need to tell me twice," said Ron. "I'd study too, if I thought it'd help knock that smug git off his high horse."

"You might consider studying anyway, Ronald."

He had shaken his head. "Nah.")

" _Where?_ " Malfoy started taking down the wards. You watched the bleary film disappear from the night sky in jerky increments. "You Gryffindor's are annoyingly vague, aren't you?"

You glared at him, though you weren't sure he saw. "Mcgonogall's Animagus thing. You weren't there."

"How observant."

He definitely saw you frown this time. Malfoy smiled delicately, tucking his wand back into his pocket when the last of the wards was gone. It was degrees colder, all of a sudden. "What makes you so sure I would've been chosen?" He said.

You exhaled in a huff. "Are you seriously trying to make me flatter your ego? You know why. You do wandless magic like you've been learning it since first year." As you spoke, the telescopes and scrolls slid back across the floor and neatly into the shelter. Malfoy flicked his wrist lazily and the door swung shut behind them. _Show off_.

"She didn't ask you then?"

"Hardly," he sniffed, the bloody recalcitrant.

"What was it you were saying?" You snapped, "about being annoyingly vague?"

Cool grey eyes flickered. Then he smirked, seemingly to himself, and then shrugged dignified shoulders. "She did ask me."

"And you said no?"

" _Obviously_."

"Why?"

Malfoy smiled evasively and started for the steps of the parapet. "I've got other things to be getting on with, haven't I?"

"Like what?" You said, though you already knew he wouldn't tell you.

"Secret." The top of his blonde head was disappearing leisurely down the spiraling staircase. "Bye now!" he called, with a familiar sardonic edge. His voice echoed back up the chamber long after he'd gone.

xx

"This is going to be harder than we thought, isn't it?" Harry's voice cut through the dense silence of the Gryffindor common room.

"Will you shut up, Harry?" came Hermione's in exasperated response. "We've only been here for twenty minutes and you've interrupted twice."

"So?"

You blinked one eye open.

"So, Mcgonogall said an hour a day. _So_ , stop talking, close your eyes and keep trying."

"What's the point?" Harry turned his head to stare wistfully at the golden rings of the Quidditch pitch, which were just visible outside the ternion of arched windows. Dim, wintery light was filtering through their hatches, so that all of the tower's soft velvet furnishings were mottled in little squares of silver and grey. And you weren't thinking about how similar the pewter glow was to the colour of Malfoy's eyes. You were thinking about Divination. Yes, you were.

"I can't concentrate when there's a game going on," Harry said.

"Gryffindor's not even playing," you pointed out civilly, stretching your arms above your head. Almost half an hour of floor-sitting/thinking-about-Divination-and-nothing-else had left you stiff and sore. "Or neither of you would be here."

"Yeah, but Slytherin is. And if they beat Hufflepuff they'll pull ahead, and as if that's going to make our lives any easier in two weeks time," Ron said, having joined Harry at the window. Dean was still in his corner, but then he may very well have been asleep, because he hadn't reacted even slightly to Harry's most recent disruption.

"Fair point," you muttered, and then fell silent, conscious of the colour rising in Hermione's cheeks.

"You do realise," she said, eyes still stubbornly closed, "that the very reason we're doing this now is _because_ there's a Quidditch game on? When else do we have the common room to ourselves?"

"Alright, alright," Harry conceded, dropping back onto his cushion. Ron followed suit, a tinge of trepidation on his face that you silently attributed to Weasley-is-our-king-related PTSD (poor Ron), and soon silence had fallen over the room once more.

_Clear, calm, empty._

'It's not as easy as it sounds,' Mcgonagall had said in your most recent class, which had taken place in the last week of the month. Despite the initial skepticism she had met in claiming that you would not even begin discussing Mandragora until after Christmas break, the Headmistress was swiftly being proven right. No one, in either of the meetings that had taken place since the first, had been able to report the slightest bit of progress with their Divination. This troubled some more than others. Hermione seemed to take it as a personal offence that two week's spartan effort had not yet yielded her any results. Ron was unbothered. Luna was actually pleased.

("What do you mean, 'we should be grateful'?" Hermione had spat incredulously, last Tuesday morning over breakfast.

"It means your animal's tough, if it hasn't yielded yet," Luna said. The lilting airiness in her voice was not dismayed by Hermione's acerbic tongue. "If it was something weak, it would've revealed itself already."

"Rita Skeeter's a beetle. I suppose it took her all of a fortnight?"

"I'm talking about spirit, Hermione. Weak of character."

"A couple of days, then!"

Ron, despite a self-admitted lack of tact, always seemed to be able to predict those occasions when Hermione's hard-headed realism would collide with Luna's, erm, _quixotism_ (which was ironically impenetrable) and intervened.

"It could be that," he said. "Or we're all just utterly hopeless Animagi.")

'It's not as easy as it sounds' _. Well, it never sounded easy to me,_ you thought bitterly.

_Clear, calm, empty._

Impossible. The Sneakoscope that lived in your stomach must've met another and fucking multiplied, because you felt the incessant whirring of their evil spawn everywhere, most of all the head that you were supposed to be making bare and tranquil and still.

_Buzz_ , the little shit beside your right temple said, and it seemed to be reminding you that Mcgonogall was not likely to take an Apprentice who couldn't even get past the first stage of Animagus transformation, and you really should try and concentrate.

And then an admonishing _whir_ that felt rather like a warning, and it was making the well founded point that leaving your mind agape when you had so much to conceal, and in the presence of those from whom you meant to conceal it, was not very wise.

_Rattle spur_ , countered another, because no one present was a Legilimens or anything of the sort, and you knew that, and you were supposed to be being not-paranoid, so _shush. And keep trying._

_Clear, calm, empty._

_Whiz, buzz,_ fucking _drone_ , and you couldn't think straight, because now he was edging his way into your stream of consciousness, as he always bloody did. _Not good_ , urged the Sneakoscope in your stomach, as you thought against your will of his rain and citrus scent, and his slick tongue and his cold hands. _Not good at all._

A muffled thump sounded across the common room, and then came the shouts of both Harry and Hermione. Your eyes jumped under closed lids.

"What the—Harry!"

"I'm sorry!" Harry sounded rather like he was trying to suppress a fit of laughter. Failing tragically. "Shit, fuck, let me fix it."

To this latest disturbance, you opened your eyes once more. In his desperation to catch a glimpse of the Quidditch pitch through the window, Harry had brought one of the dusty velvet curtains down on Hermione's head.

She emerged from underneath it, the scowl on her face bordering frenzied acrimony. "Oh, just go!" she snapped.

"Really?"

"I'm not a prefect anymore, Harry, I don't see why you always ask for my permission like I'm—oh, never mind. Yes. Go. The rest of us will make more progress without you, anyway." She drew her wand from her sleeve as she spoke and sent the drapes rattling back onto their rod with an angry flick.

"Promise you won't tell Mcgonagall on me?" Harry said, making for the portrait hole.

Ron scarpered after him. "On us, you mean."

Hermione, looking further miffed now that Harry had led Ron astray, called out to his retreating back. "You only want to go because Hufflepuff's playing that new Seeker you fancy!"

Harry whipped around, awkwardly bent and crouching, halfway through the hole. He looked for a minute like he was going to deny it, but then seemed to realise the fantastic vermillion flush that was creeping up his face and decide it wasn't worth the trouble. "Fair fucking go, Hermione," he said, eyes on the carpet.

Ron chuckled. Hermione gave a little self satisfied smile, muttered something that sounded rather like _Probity, Harry_ , and closed her eyes once more. Dean hardly stirred.

"He is rather fit," you offered placatingly.

"I know he is," Harry said gravely, and turned for the portrait hole once more. Ron followed, twisting his lanky frame in a most ungainly fashion. You could hear him teasing Harry all the way down the staircase.

Dean shifted at the dull thud of the closing door. He rubbed his eyes, blinked one open. "Where've the others gone?" He said.

Hermione ignored this question, choosing instead to ask; "Any progress, then?" You had a suspicion that the wanting bite was supposed to sound offhand. It did not.

Dean shook his head. "None," he said, and then chuckled softly. "Interesting dream, though."

"Did Seamus feature, by any chance?" You enquired.

"Indeed he did," said Dean, and Hermione protested with a weak groan.

"Harry and Ron have gone to watch the game," she conceded. "I s'pose you'll want to join them?"

"You suppose right, Hermione." Dean unfolded himself from the floor, stretched, and was gone.

The portrait swung back into place once more. Dean had closed it much more gently than Ron, but the disturbance still shuddered dust from the pile rug at your feet. You watched, in the nascent hush that had descended, as it rose, oscillated in pale, silvery light, and fell again.

And then you stopped watching the dust, because your stomach-Sneakscope had given an almighty rattle, realising before even you did that you were now alone with Hermione. Though there was nothing ostensibly wrong with this, you'd long held a strange inkling that alone-with-Hermione was not a good place to be when you had a secret. Something about her eyes, you thought. Disturbingly shrewd.

"You know, the pair of them have always been hopeless at study, but I thought they'd at least take _this_ seriously."

"I'm sure they are," you said diplomatically. "In their own way, you know?"

"Maybe," Hermione muttered, not sounding at all convinced. She closed her eyes again, and you felt strangely relieved, as though a bright light had been switched off. You didn't close yours, though. Didn't much feel like being trapped in your own head with all those bloody Sneakoscopes.

_You are going a little insane, aren't you?_

A few minutes silence (minus the clattering, of course), then she spoke again.

"Did you know Ernie wants to be a Transfigurations Apprentice? I overheard him telling Zacharias Smith last night at supper."

You smiled discreetly, deciding not to point out that Hermione had been most opposed to Divination interruptions when they'd come from Harry and Ron, and not herself.

"So he's my competition, then?"

Hermione blinked beneath heavy brows. "Does that mean you've decided on Transfigurations?"

You considered this a moment. You hadn't really meant to say that—it just came out. "I suppose," you said, eventually. "It would be convenient, wouldn't it?"

Hermione nodded. "And Mcgonogall would take you, I'm sure."

You weren't sure how to respond to this. You weren't quite sure how to feel about it, either. You'd always wanted to be an Apprentice. You still did. Transfigurations was arguably your best subject. You'd already been accepted into an intensive study put forward by the Professor herself. All of this = logical decision, did it not? _So what's the bloody rattling about?,_ you demanded of your abdomen, where the unrelenting buzzing was imparting you with the strange feeling that you were... well... settling, a little bit. Making the wrong choice.

Hermione said nothing more, tilting her head back against the rotund wall. Eyes closed. Line between them deep and resolute. You held your breath for a good minute, until it became clear that she didn't plan on pushing it.

_Good,_ you thought, exhaling carefully. _You like Transfigurations. You'll get this eventually, and you'll get the next bit too. And Mcgonogall will take you on as an Apprentice, and you'll be happy about it. Yes, you will._

This train of thought went on for a while, and it stymied your progress rather ironically—you were only just wrenching your focus back towards _clearcalmempty_ when the portrait hole swung open, and the common room deluged with ruby coloured jerseys and the sweat-and-turf smell of the Quidditch pitch.

"Take that, fucking snakes!" Seamus cheered, and Luna's ridiculous hat roared in response.

Hermione pushed herself up from the floor and frowned. "First years, Seamus," she said.

"Shit. Sorry."

"Thought you weren't a prefect anymore, Hermione?"

"Enjoy the game, Harry? Enjoy the _view_?"

"Oh, fuck you."

"Harry! _Language_."

Harry muttered something that sounded rather like _language yourself_ and turned for the centre of the room, where the cheers were reaching a thunderous crescendo.

"God, they're unbearable after Quidditch," Hermione said. "And they didn't even _play_." She shook her head gravely, sent the cushion she had been sitting on soaring back towards the couch, and wended her way through the crowded room to the girl's dormitory stairs.

A vague embarrassment struck you as you watched her go—you were now sitting on the floor, alone. _Get up,_ you told yourself, but something about it was not potent enough to pull you to your feet. You let your head lull against the wall behind you, shouts and heat and earthy-grass-scent melding into bronze puddles beneath your closed lids. Until something jabbed at you. Something sharp.

"They've been utter shit ever since they lost Malfoy," Dean was saying, and hearing his name so casually in such a context made your head suddenly and inexplicably ache.

"And his father's money," Ron added indignantly. "Slytherin _git_."

You stood up at that.

And the cheering started again, and someone sent an Incendio hurtling towards the blackened logs in the hearth, and suddenly the room was awash with effulgent orange flames. The acicular grey squares of light were gone, everything becoming smeared and soft as second years congregated on the staircases and eighth years trapsised the room to secure spots by the fire.

Though you couldn't see it anymore, as you made your way towards the portrait hole, you were sure that the dust on the pile rug was cavorting wildly beneath their feet.

xx


	2. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning of sorts: as of now, this fic contains only light depictions of/allusions to sexual activities This may change in future chapters. Lots of swearing, though.
> 
> A/N: I’m aware luna is not the same age as harry and co canonically, but i like to pretend she is, so there she is. Expect more Terry Boot, more Draco, and more… spice, in upcoming chapters.

It was on a grim Monday evening in the second week of December that Professor McGonagall wended her way about the Great Hall, taking down the names of the students who would be staying over Christmas break. It had struck a chord with you that, though she was now Headmistress and could most certainly have delegated the task, she chose to do it herself. A poignantly—and childishly—nostalgic one, at that. When she reached the eighth year table, scribbling away at a slip of parchment, the Professor had procured a second document from beneath her robes. She tapped the corner with her wand, muttered under her breath, and with a shudder it began to multiply. She tapped again, and set the newly duplicated stack of papers down next to a steaming flagon of black coffee (which was conspicuous in its capacity, because Malf—well, someone, usually drained the thing as soon as it appeared on the table). McGonagall had pointed the expectantly watching eighth years towards the pile with a tartan-clad wrist, and then turned on her heel. 

Ron, who was one of your few remaining dinner companions (Hermione had rushed off to the Library, Seamus and Dean to take advantage of a presumably empty dormitory, and Harry to the Hufflepuff table with a murmured excuse (that no one believed) regarding next month’s Quidditch match), had sighed and muttered; 

“Merlin, wouldn’t kill her to explain herself on occasion, would it?” He stretched a long, freckled arm over a silver tureen of potatoes to grab a notice. “Ah,” he had then said loftily, sliding the parchment towards you. “You’ll be wanting this.” 

“Thanks,” you murmured. The notice had read, in ink of deep, emerald green; 

**Eighth year students wishing to undertake an Apprenticeship next year**

**must report to the Headmistress’ study on Friday the 14th at 7.55 for an 8.00 commencement**

**The password is** **_‘SPOTTED KNEAZLE’_ **

“See this?” Neville said from across the table. 

You nodded. “Coming, then?”

“Course.” 

You didn’t have to ask what Apprenticeship Nev would be going in for. His robes had still been covered in tears from what must have been a particularly acrimonious crop of Venomous Tentacula. 

xx

Tuesday dawned a soft blue but had turned frigid by noon. Dinner took place under an exceptionally depressing mass of soot coloured clouds. Malfoy had now been absent from meals several days in a row, and barely traceable anywhere else. He had skulked into Potions halfway through the third-period lesson, exchanged mutterings with Slughorn, and then disappeared once more. It was with a begrudging disappointment that you had watched him go, eyes firmly on the door. Your last Thursday-on-the-Astronomy-Tower was weeks ago. The fucking Sneakoscope was rattling more aggressivly than ever. (Such was the force that you briefly contemplated approaching him, instead. But you were pretty sure the Sneakoscope would have to burst from your chest before you actually did anything of the sort. It just wasn’t the way it worked. Which was quite pathetic, you supposed.) 

The common room had been, for some obscure reason that involved a case of charmed Filibusters and limited edition Chocolate Frogs with Dragon Barrel Brandy centres, very rowdy that night, so you’d taken your study to the Library. Calm and alone; you always liked the draconian silence enforced by Madam Pince, and the smell of the worn leather and wax, and books levitating innocuously back to their shelves overhead. 

When you clambered back through the portrait hole past eleven, only the four other Gryffindor Animagus students had remained, sat stock still and silent against the tower’s curved walls. You had been met with the sudden and inexplicable urge to turn around, until Ron blinked open a freckled lid.

“We’re Divinating,” he said. 

“Trying to,” muttered Hermione. 

“I see that,” you said, and dropped down next to Dean, with what you had hoped looked more like weariness than reluctance. 

xx

On Wednesday, scrolls of parchment bound in soft, purple ribbon had found their way to all of the eighth year students, by way of remote Levitation charms or first-year courier. Perhaps the war had driven Slughorn to rethink his philosophies on exclusivity, or maybe he didn’t deem cherry-picking worth the trouble anymore, seeing as there were so few of you. Either way, it made for much less animosity in the common room when everyone was invited. Or it should have, at least. 

“I don’t want to go,” Dean had complained. 

“Why not?” said Seamus. 

“Slughorn’s a slippery git, isn’t he? Don’t much fancy an evening of sitting around listening to him talk about himself.”

“Come off it, he’s alright,” you had said. Dean wrinkled his nose. 

“It’s not like it’s a sit-down dinner, or anything,” added Lavender. “It’s a Christmas do.” 

“It’ll be fun,” said Seamus. 

“Dress robes,” said Dean.

“I heard he serves Firewhisky,” said Seamus. 

“ _ Dress robes _ ,” said Dean. 

xx 

Thursday had marked the fourth meeting of the Animagus group, or as it was now known to Harry, Ron, Luna, Hermione, Dean and yourself; the Beatles. (Dean suggested it, Hermione and Harry had laughed, and it had taken some time for them to explain what was so funny about it to the rest of you. 

“So it’s Beatles like ‘ea’ not ‘ee’?” confirmed Ron. 

“Yes. It’s a band, Ronald.”   
Ron nodded. “And it’s funny because beetles are animals too, and we’re trying to become Animagi.”

“And the sky is blue and the grass is green,” said Dean. “Merlin’s sake, fucking Purebloods.”)

McGonagall had, once more, showed no concern that Divination eluded you all. 

“To be expected,” she said briskly, when the usual question returned a chorus of shaking heads. 

The class had been spent discussing Animato Revoco, a very curious little spell that you’d never heard a whisper of beforehand, not even from Hermione. 

“While the incantation Amato Animo Animato is a Transfiguration spell used in the initial transformation, Animato Revoco is a mere Charm. When cast, post Divination, it should conjure from your wand a shadow of your Animagus form. This shadow will not be clear enough to discern until the Transfiguration is complete, so don’t get so excited, Thomas. It doesn’t know until you know, see?” With that, McGonagall had cast a wordless Animato Revoco, and a cat-shaped, bespectacled shadow shot from her wand, padded back and forth, and dissolved. 

“It looks a bit like a Patronus,” said Ron. 

“That’s because it is, Mr Weasley. But unlike a Patronus, a Revoco cannot perform any practical function.” 

“What’s the point of it, then?”

McGonagall had frowned. “Professor,” Ron added hastily. 

“The ‘ _ point’ _ is simply to show one’s Animagus without having to transform. Like I said, it serves little practical function.” 

“Professor? I thought you said there was no way to tell if you’ve accomplished Divination.” 

“There isn’t, Ms Macdougal, no absolute one, at least,” McGonagall had said a little impatiently. “While, yes, Animato Revoco is only really possible once significant progress in the first stage has been made, it is not concrete. Work may still need to be done once a shadow reveals itself, and vice versa. As I have often said, if you remain unsure of whether you have completed Divination, then you have not.”

xx

When Friday came, and you found yourself in McGonagall’s company once again, you considered the humbling truth that you’d probably spent more time with the Headmistress than without her, so far this term. You didn’t know exactly how to feel about that. 

She was nowhere to be seen when the stone gargoyles let you up at five to, accompanied by Neville, Lavender (who you hadn’t known was interested in an Apprenticeship until she joined you and Nev on the way out of the common room), Terry Boot (the only Ravenclaw, which was quite odd) and Ernie Macmillan. You had never been inside before. And though the carved seat behind the desk was empty, the vast room still bore a prodigious imprint of McGonagall’s residency. 

In fact, although the snoozing professors rendered in oils and hung on the walls were indisputable evidence of it’s previous inhabitants, you couldn’t imagine what the office would look like if it didn’t belong to McGonagall. There were the tartan-bound armchairs that you recognised from her old, fifth floor study (of which there still remained an extra, even after the five of you had taken seats—perhaps she had been expecting more attendees), and the ornate chrome pot of floo powder. Photographs of the Gryffindor Quidditch team lined the bookshelves, dating back almost two decades. (You scanned them for a while, but lost interest soon after the tall and sharp-jawed Oliver Wood disappeared from the group.) An emblem bearing a handsome, gold-feathered bird hung behind the desk, it’s navy fringe tickling the gilt frame inhabited by a sleeping Dumbledore. Your eyes skipped over this, and you suppressed a grimace, trying not to let on that you found the portrait slightly macabre. 

And not doing a very good job, apparently, because Neville leant over to you not a minute later and said;

“They’re weird, aren’t they?” 

“Yeah,” you admitted. “So real.” 

“I think they’re nice. Better than being a ghost at least,” said Lavender 

“How, exactly?” chimed in Terry Boot, who sat nearest McGonagall’s desk, and was eyeing the portrait of the late Headmaster with glaring cynicism. 

Lavender shrugged. “They’ve got colour. They look more alive, don’t they?”

“But they’re only two dimensional.” 

“I think you’re being too Ravenclaw about this, Boot,” said Lavender. 

“I’d rather have depth than colour, that’s all I’m saying.” 

“Physical depth, perhaps,” said a haughty voice from the study’s far left. Ernie Macmillan almost fell out of his chair. “But one should not underestimate the power of emotional depth. It is clear, for instance, that you have none, dear boy.” 

“That’ll be quite enough, Phineas,” said Professor McGonagall, striding across the carpeted floor and glaring up at the pale, sharply bearded man, who was in turn staring daggers at Terry from his pewter frame. 

“You shouldn’t let these children run amok in here without supervision, Minerva,” said the portrait haughtily, and strode from his depiction until there was nothing left to look at but a sea of swarthy black. 

“I don’t know how I would run this school without his sage advice,” muttered McGonagall. Apparently not sensing any need to elaborate on recent events, she set down her pile of papers, settled herself behind the desk and cast a hasty Tempus. It was eight o’clock on the dot. “About time to begin, I should think,” she said. You shifted in your seat. The tartan armchairs soothed her aesthetic sensibilities, you were sure, but they were also itching your thighs through the soft wool of your trousers. 

“This meeting,” started McGonagall, in her usual brisk manner, “is being held in regard to post-eighth year Apprenticeships, as you have all been made aware. Though you received a brief explanation of the program at the start of term, I thought it prudent to elucidate, as, naturally, the scheme has been disrupted in recent years, and changes have been made. Now, each Professor—” she cut herself off abruptly as a soft clunk echoed throughout the vast, high ceilinged room. 

“Ah, Mr Malfoy,” she said. “Thank you for joining us.”

A susurration of heads turned towards the study’s entrance. The hewn stone was turning in on itself, twisting with a low, grating rattle until the archway you had come through with Lavender and Nev and Boot and Macmillan not five minutes ago reappeared. A tall, pale figure stepped out of the stairwell and into the entryway, brushing absent creases from the sleeve of his robe. “Apologies, Professor,” said Malfoy. 

“There is, I presume, a valid excuse for your tardiness?” 

“Professor Slughorn wanted a chat. I didn’t think it decorous—”  _ prat _ “—to refuse my own Head of House when he sent for me.” 

“How polite of you, Malfoy,” McGonagall said drily. “Though we are all enthralled by tales of your gallantry, I’m sure, we do have a meeting to be going ahead with. Take a seat.” 

Malfoy nodded, his face a picture of solemn repentance that was contradicted somewhat by the languid fashion with which he heeded her instruction. 

You thought it acceptable to watch him cross the room and settle in the last vacant chair, because everyone was doing so. It was relatively common knowledge, as most things came to be amongst the students at Hogwarts in some fashion or another, that Malfoy had turned down McGonagall’s invitation to the Animagus study. Which was perplexing enough on it’s own, but now, here he was, at the Apprenticeship meeting, and this made the entire thing firmly baffling. (Besides, you had an inkling that if it had been Macmillan who walked in late, or Neville, or yourself, the collective attention would have returned to McGonagall much sooner. But it was Malfoy, and there  _ was _ something about him—it wasn’t just you—something haughty and detached about the way he held himself, that made you think that perhaps he wasn’t late, and you had just shown up early. You were certain, also, that Lavender’s eyes remained on him as he sat, and perhaps even Boot’s, because although he was, as most non-Slytherin’s would agree, a slick git, he was also a reasonably decorative addition to the Headmistress’s office. More so than the wheezing, wispily-bearded portraits that sat behind him, at least.)

_ Enough _ . 

McGonagall began to speak once more. “As I was just explaining, each year, Hogwarts Professors across all subjects seek to take on an Apprentice. Though, some may choose not to, if none of adequate skill apply. This Apprentice will study under the guidance of their Professor for two years, functioning as both a pupil and an assistant in their teaching duties.”

_ Rattle. Buzz _ .  _ It’s fine _ , you assured the Sneakoscope by your temple, when your eyes refused to part with fair hair that still bore the tracts of his fingers. You’d barely seen anything of him for weeks, what with his slinking in and out of classes and skipping meals at the eighth year table. You were just… making sure nothing had changed. 

Not that you’d care, if it had. 

“Listen, now, I want to emphasise this—Apprenticeships are very useful, and not only for those hoping to become Professors. Many of the best Healers, for example, first complete an Apprenticeship in Potions. Many Aurors in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and so on.”

Behind him, you noticed as he settled, the door of a cabinet stood fractionally open. Emanating from within was a soft, glowing light, that threw milky halos around the fine bones of his profile. He looked arrestingly strange in the silver and blue, reflecting like the ghostly other from his cheekbones.

“Though I understand the desire to enter the world the minute you complete your studies, it will serve you well to do so with specialised skills and expert knowledge. Do not underestimate the power of erudition over practical skill. Now, to—shut that, would you Malfoy?”

All turned to look at him once more. You didn’t have to, because you already were. Which was handy, you supposed. 

He glanced over his shoulder, then nodded briefly, and reunited the wooden lip with a small jerk of his wrist. You were, you noted with some confusion, disappointed at the snuffing of the aegean glow.

“You’ve been practicing your wandless magic?” McGonagall said. You could tell she was impressed. Albeit begrudgingly. 

“Here and there,” Malfoy replied softly, but not pleasantly, and with arms crossed blithely over his chest. He shot another glance at the now-closed cabinet over his shoulder as McGonagall returned her attention to the group. 

_ A Pensieve _ , you thought. You knew there was one in here—Probity had equipped you with much obscure knowledge about the goings on of the Headmaster’s office. You wouldn’t be surprised if the Malfoy’s had one of their own in that inordinate family seat of theirs, and thought suddenly of how it would feel to look inside. And then you’d ask Malfoy how  _ he _ liked having his thoughts raided, the dickhead. 

_ Concentrate, now.  _

“Now, to qualify for an Apprenticeship, you must have completed an intensive study in your final year. The terms of these studies of these vary from subject to subject. Some follow a strict course provided by the Professor, while others are more flexible. It is the Professor’s prerogative, and as such I suggest you consult with them. 

“I, personally, much prefer my students to have knowledge that is tightly linked to the Transfigurations curriculum. Thus, I offer an intensive study under my supervision, in alliance with what I think prudent to the subject as it evolves. This year, as I’m sure many of you know, I have chosen Animagus transformations.”

There was some indignant shuffling at this. Clearly, Gryffindor was not the only House in which McGonogall’s Animagus study was somewhat of a touchy subject. It was weird, really, because no one would have been miffed at being left out of Sprout's intensive on the many uses of Bubotuber pus. No one would even bother unless they wanted to be a Herbology Apprentice. Unless they were… well, Neville. But Animagi were different, you supposed. Who wouldn’t want to be one?

Besides Malfoy. 

“Is it true that we can do integrated studies this year?” asked Terry Boot. 

“It is,” said McGonagall. “Rules on the subject are not as strict as they used to be. That is to say, the intensive study you choose to complete does not necessarily have to correspond to the Apprenticeship you wish to apply for. 

“There is room for overlap in relevant areas, provided your marks are sound in both—Professor Trelawney, for example, is quite happy to accept students who have completed an intensive in Astronomy. Professor Hagrid is willing to take those who have completed one in Herbology, and so on.”

This was news to you. But it didn’t change anything, really. An intensive study in Animagi could translate to Potions, probably, and maybe Charms at a stretch. Possibly Defence, too. But the prospect of becoming an Apprentice in any of those conjured up nothing more than a weak fizz in your stomach from it’s omnipresent companion. _Transfiguration_ _it is, then,_ you told the Sneakoscope firmly. _Buzz_. 

“As I said before, it is the Professor’s prerogative. You must consult with them. Now, as for important dates in the application process—and I don’t want any of you forgetting these—” McGonagall looked to Neville with sceptical brows. He frowned for a minute, rustled about in his pocket, and then pulled a glass sphere from within. 

“Go ahead,” he said, placing the Remembrall gently down on McGonagall’s desk. 

“No excuses, then, Longbottom,” she said. Then cleared her throat. Began reading from a slip of parchment. “Applications for your Apprenticeship must be submitted to me by January 31st. Applications must include an outline of your intensive study, approved and signed by all relevant members of faculty. If you plan to undertake an integrated course, that means the Professor in both the topic of your intensive study and your proposed Apprenticeship.

“Applications must also include the signature of your Head of House, a copy of your O.W.L. results and an averaging of your marks across all subjects from your sixth year. A brief personal response regarding your interest in the Apprenticeship is also required. 

“No exceptions will be made for late returns.” She leant a little closer to the Remembrall, when she said that. 

“Thanks,” said Neville, pocketing it once more. 

McGonagall gave a curt nod. “You will undergo your intensive study as planned. At the end of the year, your progress will be reviewed alongside your application, and you will find out via your chosen Professor whether you have been successful. 

“If so, we usually encourage Apprentices to remain at Hogwarts for a month or so out of the summer break, to acquaint themselves with the ways of the staff before coming back for the new term. If not, then you will simply leave Hogwarts with incalculable specialised knowledge.” 

What did McGonagall define as success? The full transformation, surely not, for she had no qualms in emphasising the unlikelihood that many of you would achieve it before the end of the year. The Tempest stage, maybe? Or one, full, red-hot go, regardless of its success? 

In that moment you resolved to spend a little more time and effort on your Divination. 

“Now, I need to take down each of your names and desired subject on these forms, and then I can give them to you to take away,” McGonagall said. She pulled a sheath of papers from somewhere within the great, carved desk, and picked up a handsome raven feathered quill from it’s well. “We’ll start with you, Ms Brown. What Apprenticeship do you hope to undertake?”

“Divination, Professor.”

McGonogall filled in the empty fields and handed the parchment over to Lavender, keeping the sour expression from her face by a mere fraction. Lavender looked amused. 

“Herbology, Longbottom?”

Neville nodded. Took his application. 

“Macmillan?”

“Transfigurations, Professor.”

“And you too, I assume?” McGonagall pointed her quill at you.

“Yeah,” you said. 

Ernie smiled with brilliantly white teeth. “Nothing like a bit of friendly competition, eh?” He reached over Lavender to clap you on the shoulder. 

You hummed in agreement. Neville suppressed a chuckle. McGonagall sent two forms towards yourself and Ernie with a wandless charm. 

“Boot?”

“Arithmancy.” 

“ _ Why? _ ” came Lavender’s voice. “Sorry,” she added. “Didn’t mean to say that out loud.” 

Terry Boot chuckled. “Sometimes, I ask myself that too.” 

“Arithmancy,” McGonagall said slowly as she printed the words below Terry’s name, trying to maintain a semblance of control. “And Malfoy?”

You didn’t bother masking your interest, and no one else did, either. Slytherins on the whole were a special sort of enigma—nobody knew what they got up to in that dim underground common room—so any insight into one of their goings on always felt strangely obtrusive. And there was, of course, the added intrigue of what on earth he turned down Animagi in favour of. 

If Malfoy noticed the hush that had fallen over the study (and you were sure that he had), he didn’t show it. He first uncrossed his legs, then recrossed his ankles. “Professor Slughorn has accepted my proposal, Headmistress,” he said simply. 

McGonagall gave a curt nod, made a final scribble on the last bit of parchment, and then set down her quill. 

You tilted your head subtly as Malfoy’s form sailed towards him, but couldn’t make out any of the words. Elaborate _. Elaborate.  _

“Thank you all for your attendance. Hopefully this meeting has proven useful,” McGonagall said. The likelihood that you would find out what he was up to lessened with every syllable. “Do not forget about your applications. Try and get them completed over the Christmas break.”

So much for insight. 

Tartan armchairs creaked in protest as the small group began to gather themselves. 

“Brief? It’s five hundred words!” Neville balked at his parchment. He tucked it into his satchel indignantly. “The response component is five hundred bloody words. ‘ _ Why do you want to study Herbology? _ ’” 

“Oh, joy,” you said, scrutinising your own. What did you have to say about Transfigurations, really? 

_ Since I started shagging Malfoy, all my subjects seem kind of boring. Transfiguration is still a bit interesting, though.  _

That’d fill two lines at most. And it probably wouldn’t get McGonagall’s approval, either. Fuck. 

“It’s like extra homework,” Lavender lamented. 

“I’ve got some bad news about Apprenticeships for you Brown, if you don’t like extra study,” said Terry Boot.

“Don’t break it to me,” said Lavender. “I think I might cry.” 

Neville tugged at her sleeve. “Can we swing by the Greenhouse, Lav? I want to check on Daisy before bed,” he said. 

“Who’s Daisy?” said Terry.

“His cactus,” said Lavender. 

“It’s  _ not _ a cactus. It’s a Mimbulus Mimbletonia. And it’s due to spray.”

“Gross, Neville. But fine, let’s go,” she said. And then to you; “coming?”

You shook your head. “I’ve got a question.”

“Me too,” said Boot. 

Lavender and Neville turned for the exit with Ernie Macmillan. 

Malfoy was standing at McGonagall’s desk, his belongings still slung over the back of his chair.  _ Don’t look at him like that _ , you scolded yourself. (You could have sworn that, though it took several painful days of blushing, you had at least learnt how to act with a semblance of regularity since he’d said  _ you’re-thinking-about-me-again _ and you’d said  _ yes _ . 

It was his recent absence, you decided. You were just getting out of practice. Seeing him in such close proximity had started to feel like a disquiet novelty, and that wouldn’t do.) 

“Exceptional circumstances, as I’m sure you well know,” McGonagall was muttering, and Malfoy was nodding carefully. The whole thing looked so utterly grave that you were hesitant to intrude. 

In the name of small mercies, you didn’t have to. McGonagall looked up. 

“What can I help you with?” She said, dismissing Malfoy with a curt nod. He had discarded his robes at some point (how you’d missed that, you weren’t sure), and turned pointedly away from you and Boot as he began the arduous task of pulling them back on over his jumper. 

“You first,” you said softly to Terry. 

Terry, as you most likely could have predicted, asked McGonagall several eager questions about extra assignments, extensions on his study, the possibility of completing two instead of one. House stereotypes weren’t a good thing, probably, but it would be easier to abandon them if they’d just stop being so bloody accurate. 

“I don’t doubt your capabilities, Boot. I’m sure that, if you still wish to take on more during the completion of your studies, Professor Vector would be more than happy to discuss extracurriculars,” McGongall told him, and he looked rather chuffed as he stepped back to accommodate you. 

You were only marginally distracted by Malfoy, who had finished with his robes and was winding a thick scarf of emerald and white cashmere around his neck, as you prepared to ask your question. And then, McGonagall held up a palm. “One moment—Mr Malfoy. You were absent from dinner on Monday. I take it you are still planning to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas break?”

He paused in a step towards the exit, his hand hovering over the strap of his leather satchel. A few seconds passed, of a stillness so disconcerting that you thought someone must have cast a Petrificus on him, and then, very slightly, he nodded. 

“Very well,” said McGonagall. “Off you go then.”

But Malfoy didn’t need the invitation. He pushed past yourself and Boot so quickly that his clarifying scent barely lingered. You didn’t dare watch him go, suddenly struck with a cloying anxiety that you’d seen some you ought not. 

“Go on,” said McGonagall. 

“Right, yes. Sorry,” you said, thoughts frustratingly elsewhere. “The Animagus study. How far along would you want an Apprentice to be? You know, to accept them?”

“I thought you might ask that. And I am hesitant to give you an answer.” 

You really mustn’t have been very good at keeping your face neutral, because for the second time that night you failed to mask your displeasure. 

“I understand this may cause you frustration,” said McGonagall. “But I assure you my reasons are valid. I fear that any answer I give you will only impede your progress. I do not want to put undue pressure on either you or Macmillan by imposing a strict criteria that will serve only to hang over your heads until the completion of your study.” 

_ A concern for undue pressure? No strict criteria? _ You briefly considered checking the chipped mug on McGonagall’s desk for traces of Polyjuice. 

“Were the study centred around anything but Animagi, I would not hesitate to provide you with more austere guidelines. But unlike much of Transfigurations, Animagus magic is anything but precise.”

“I’m sorry Professor, but I don’t think I really understand.”

McGonagall fixed you with a gaze that was stern, but not unkind. “Animagus magic is a magic of the mind, more than much else. And with delicate processes like Divination, it will not serve yours well to be distracted by deadlines and must-completes.”

“I see,” you said. It was… a fair point, you supposed. But regardless of what McGonagall did or didn’t tell you, you were still going to worry about being good enough. A definite answer could at least take the guesswork out of it. 

Another shrewd stare. “You’re a smart young woman, so I’m sure you know that I will expect the utmost skill and dedication from my Apprentice, whomever they may be. And I’m sure you also know that I will not hesitate to warn you, should your progress be lacking.” 

You nodded firmly. This provided more concrete reassurance. A guarantee that McGonagall would step in if you were falling behind. You resolved not to give her any reason to. 

“Is that all?” 

You nodded, and Terry Boot (who had waited for you, which was nice but rather irregular) said; “yes.” 

xx

It was as you left McGonagall’s study that you realised you really hadn’t exchanged many more than two words with Boot for the better part of eight years. (Those two words being ‘you first’, followed by a not  _ not _ -persistent shove.)

“Worried about Macmillan, then?” he said, breaking the silence as you began your descent down the curling staircase. 

“I suppose so,” you said. “He’s very good at Transfigurations.”

“He’s also very good at irking McGonagall something fierce.”

This was true, and so you had to laugh. “He’s a nice bloke. I probably shouldn’t underestimate him.”

“Those Gryffindor instincts,” said Terry. You had passed the gargoyles, which grunted a farewell, and were now nearing the precipice of the grand staircase, at which you would part to find your respective towers. 

“Yeah,” you said. “Gotta trust them.” 

xx

“So are you ever going to tell me what you're up to with this Apprenticeship stuff, then?” You asked with a poor attempt at indifference, tugging the knot of your tie back into place. 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Malfoy, who was doing the same, but with markedly more elegance in his deft fingers. 

The bitch. 

“Of course not,” you said. You’d known he wouldn't tell you what all the truanting and hushed tete-a-tete was about, but it was still worth asking. Well, not really. But just as Terry Boot succumbed to the stereotype that all Ravenclaws were hopeless overachievers and Malfoy continued to be a slick Slytherin git, so too did you fail to quell your impulsive curiosity. You could still call yourself a Gryffindor in that respect, at least. 

“You forgot a button,” advised Malfoy. 

“Can’t you fix it for me, oh wandless magician?” you muttered acerbically.

He smirked, quirked a finger, and the topmost button on your white shirt folded itself neatly into the hole. 

“You’re a dreadful show off, you know?”

“Speaking of, I am off.” He stepped out of the annular shelter, robes over his shoulders, and began to dispel the wards.  _ Can’t do that wandless _ , you noted with satisfaction. 

“You always leave first.” 

“Yes, well, one of us has to tear ourselves away.”

“You know what I mean. I just don’t like being the one who has to wait up here for ten minutes. It’s cold without the wards.” 

“I’m not a Gryffindor,” said Malfoy, tucking his wand back into his trouser pocket. He shrugged on his robes and brushed the sleeves, twice down one, twice the other. “I don’t affect to be chivalrous.”

“Still a Hufflepuff, then?” you said, craning for a look at his ring. 

“Fuck off,” came his voice, a familiar echo up the parapet. You huffed indignantly. Your robes lay still on the shelter’s floor. You turned to collect them and attempted to smooth a few of the creases, with limited success.

How was it that you always looked decidedly rumpled after these Astronomy Tower rendezvous, while Malfoy’s crisply pleated trousers and finger-combed hair bore no suggestion whatsoever of a hasty, turbulent shag?

(Which hadn’t come a moment too soon. Just as the Sneakoscope had whittled it’s way up to your ribs and was rattling a din so fierce that not even the bracing silence of the Library could help you focus on your homework, Malfoy had caught your arm in the Great Hall corridor on the way out of Saturday’s breakfast. It was the morning after the Apprentice meeting and the first meal he’d attended in a good week or two. Capricious silver and lashes and heavy lids greeted you so briefly it might not have happened at all, and he muttered “this Thursday,” and then he was off. You considered following him and telling him where he could stick his ‘ _ this Thursday’ _ , because his abrupt absence in recent weeks had you feeling irrationally perverse. (Irrationally because, well, your arrangement was beyond casual. The very idea of it was that there was no obligation.) But these thoughts were fleeting, because he’d been wearing those black trousers with  _ that _ black jacket, and the Sneakoscope had reconciled itself for the first time in weeks. And so you made your excuses and departed the boisterous common room at half past seven. And he’d been waiting. And he’d thrown up the wards and banished the telescopes. And as he’d fucked you up against the shelter’s cool, cut stone, worrying the familiar spots on your throat and your chest between his teeth and his hot, slick tongue, you’d started to think that the wait was entirely worth it.)

It hadn’t been ten minutes yet, but you departed the tower anyway. You often felt reckless after such highs, which was very bad timing indeed. 

“Finish your Potions essay?” asked Hermione when you clambered back through the portrait hole. She was sitting cross legged on one of the armchairs around the fire, Ron slumped half on it’s arm and half on her lap, snoring softly. It was relatively quiet—Harry and Seamus sat at the foot of the couch playing with Ron’s chess set, Neville was tactfully correcting Lavender’s Herbology homework, and lean clusters of fourth and fifth years bent over their textbooks in secluded corners. 

“Hm? Oh, not yet,” you said. You shrugged off the satchel of classwork you’d brought with you to uphold the pretence of studying, and tried not to look at it. Putting any kind of effort into your deceptions felt another level of nefarious. “Couldn’t find any good books on Horn of Bicorn.”

“I’ve got one somewhere. I’ll lend it to you.”

“Thanks, Hermione.”

She gently unfolded herself from beneath Ron’s torso, narrowing her eyes with a fleeting disapproval as Harry’s Bishop swore indignantly at Seamus’ Knight.

“I was just going to practice some Divination before bed. Want to join?”

Your resolve to try harder at Animagus studies was becoming less and less steely the more you thought of your bed and the hushed privacy of it’s drawn curtains. But you had promised to work at it, and you supposed you should hold yourself to that. The fact that the promise had been made in the presence of McGonagall, though she didn’t know it, only served to guilt you further. Fine. 

“Sure,” you said. The chess pieces had become too rowdy to sit on the couch, so you followed Hermione to a dim, empty spot by the stairwell. You drew your wand from your sleeve and Summoned two cushions for you to sit on.

“I’ve always loved your wand,” said Hermione, unbidden. 

You paused with the thing sticking halfway out of your cuff. “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty. Walnut, isn’t it?” 

“Black,” you corrected, pondering the dark flecks of the wood. You were fond of your wand, of course, but you’d never thought it especially attractive. 

“Black Walnut. Good instincts and powerful insight,” said Hermione. “Pairs best with Unicorn and Veela hairs. Rumoured to have been the childhood wand of Ignatia Wildsmith, inventor of Floo Powder.”

“What the fuck, Hermione,” you said. 

Hermione smirked and settled back against the wall. “Wand woods are very interesting. And they make for a soothing read before bed.” 

“I’m sure,” you muttered. 

A+ for effort and ten points to Gryffindor, but you may as well have gone straight to bed, because Divination eluded you as nimbly as Malfoy had in the last few weeks.  _ Clear-calm-empty _ was a laughable suggestion; you had more to think about now than ever before. 

The pointy git, as always, and though you wished it didn’t consume you so; whatever he was up to with his Apprenticeship. And your own, of course, which didn’t fail to stir rattles of impending unease from the Sneakoscope in the same way it refused to muster ones of enthusiasm. The application had been burning a hole in your pocket since last night. 

_ Why do you want to study Transfiguration?  _

Because. 

Please pick me? 

Macmillan had probably already filled the lines and started on a spare bit of parchment, the eager bastard. 

Trying not to picture McGonagall’s disapproving, bespectacled frown, and pushing thoughts of tactfully worded rejection letters and very-cold-almost-too-cold hands from your mind, you informed Hermione you were giving up for the night and headed for the girl’s dorms. 

“Checkmate, you bloody scoundrel!” roared Harry’s Queen, walloping Seamus’s King around the face with a length of splintered wood. 

“You better not have broken my set, Harry,” slurred Ron, eyes still closed. 

“Erm, Probity?” Harry said sheepishly. 

“No,” said Ron, groping blindly around the armchair. “‘Mione?” 

The satchel-of-lies glared at you from where you’d discarded it on the floor upon arrival. You scowled back, kicking it further under the couch on your way to the stairs. 

xx

Slughorn’s Christmas party took place on the last Friday before break, which was, as you were sure the Professors would come to realise, a terrible idea, because it meant the senior students had no excuse not to get absolutely maggoted. 

Seamus and Dean lead the charge, starting with shots of pregame Firewhisky in the Gryffindor common room (enough that Dean finally stopped complaining about his dress robes, which everyone, especially Seamus, thought he looked rather dashing in and should therefore shut up about), and then the artful nicking of bottles whenever the servers weren’t paying attention. (The stealth wasn’t especially necessary, really. Eighth years were of age and allowed to drink, and had been presented with trays for selection upon arrival. It was just that the strong stuff did the trick far better, and although you were relatively comfortable in conversing with Slughorn’s most esteemed guests with a flute of champagne in your hand, you were much less so with the thought of them seeing you take a line of shots.)

And so the backmost corner of Slughorn’s office, which had been conveniently draped with jewel toned hangings and heavy canopies of mistletoe, became the favoured spot of the congregation. 

“Vanish it,” urged Lavender, as Harry took the last sip from a bottle of Rosmerta’s Finest. 

“You do it, ‘Mione,” Harry said. He shoved the bottle towards her. 

“I’ll do it, but I’m cutting you off, Harry.” Harry lost a whine of petulant protest. “No, if you can’t even do a simple Evanesco, you really have had enough,” Hermione insisted. She Vanished the bottle and dragged Harry out from under the hangings to find Ron, away from the temptation of Seamus’ latest score. 

“Where did you find salt and limes, mate?” said Neville. 

“I come prepared. Fetched ‘em from the kitchens last night.” Seamus uncorked the tequila with his teeth and shot a Diffindo at the lime, which began severing itself into wedges. “Slammer?” he offered you. 

“I’m good,” you declined. You were feeling pleasantly buzzed, and probably more relaxed than you had been in weeks, but still sober enough to realise that getting as untidy as some of your more fearless classmates wasn’t the best idea. You talked when you drank. 

“No fun,” frowned Seamus. 

“Please,” you said, “this is just an excuse for you to lick salt off of Dean, Finnegan.” 

Seamus’s eyes widened. 

“Like he needs one,” said Lavender. “Get on with it then.” 

“I do like you very much, you know,” Dean told you. 

Neville looked scandalised (his naivety was amusingly stubborn, because you’d all seen far more and far worse during the alcohol fueled Probity chats of early term, which had mutated swiftly into indecent rounds of Truth or Dare and Never Have I Ever), as Dean pulled the shoulder of his robes aside so Seamus could slick salt along his collar bone. Lavender gave an enthusiastic whoop that prompted a shush from Neville, and Dean giggled uncontrollably at the sensation on his bare skin. 

The incriminating proceedings were disturbed, suddenly, by the parting of the hangings. Lavender shoved the tequila bottle into Neville’s hands ( _ gee, thanks Lav _ , he muttered), and Seamus froze with his mouth inches from Dean’s decolletage. 

“It’s just me, keep your pants on,” said Hermione. She grabbed your elbow. “Slughorn’s looking for you.” 

You were disappointed not to get to witness the scene you’d manufactured, but allowed yourself to be tugged from the alcove. 

“Owe you one,” Dean called. 

“They do realise those curtains aren’t sound proof, don’t they?” Hermione said. 

“I don’t think so.”

“Dear girl!” Slughorn cried as you approached. Hermione gave you a rather guilty smile and bolted as soon as he placed a large, pink hand on your shoulder. 

“Professor.” 

“I haven’t a single photo with you. I need all you eighth years, for my shelf. Merlin knows you deserve a place there, the lot of you.” 

_ An all-inclusive Shelf? _ , you thought.  _ Oh, brave new world _ .

“Of course,” you smiled. Indulging old Slughorn was usually the quickest way to escape him, as bitter experience had taught you. 

You flashed another obedient grin for the camera, making sure not to drop it until a good few seconds after the click. Wisdom gained and wisdom tried, when it came to Wizarding photos. 

“Lovely,” said Sluhgorn. He shooed the boy with the camera around his neck, who looked to be about thirteen.  _ Brave new world  _ **_indeed_ ** . “You haven’t a drink, my dear!” bellowed Slughorn, regarding your empty hands. 

The boy had turned, was crossing the room and clutching his camera. 

“Hm?” you said, “oh, yes, I um, left it over there.” You gestured vaguely. The boy had faltered, bumped into the slender, dark-robed back of someone taller than him by at least a half-foot. His knuckles whitened around the camera’s leather strap. 

“You must try this oak matured mead, I had it ordered in especially for tonight.” A glass was being pushed into your hand, a bottle uncorked. 

“Sorry,” the boys lips moved, as the figure turned. Cool, refined features curled into an expression so withering, you could have sworn that the bushels of holly draped artfully about the room wilted, just a little. You took a hurried sip of the mead Slughorn had poured you, relishing in the warmth of it’s scald. The young boy scarpered eagerly at the disdainful nod of a white-blond head. 

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” said Slughorn. 

You took another sip, even though your throat still burnt from the last. “Lovely, sir.” 

You supposed you shouldn’t be all that surprised to see Malfoy intimidating the bollocks off a third year, even though his formidable reputation had been somewhat dulled by Harry’s testimony at his trial post-the-war. There was something in those liquid eyes that could be positively arctic, even without the connotations of Dark Lord-allegiance, et cetera. 

Besides, aesthetically pleasing people always seemed to demand respect. And Malfoy was very soothing to your decorative sensibilities indeed, in those dark, tailored dress robes… 

_ That’s enough _ , the Sneakoscope advised you.  _ Wise _ , you agreed, and set down your glass. And thought. And then. 

“Sir,” you said suddenly. 

“Yes?”

Whether you would have asked the question sober, you weren’t sure. Adrenaline and alcohol did things to your impulse control. You wondered, for example, exactly how difficult it would be to drag Malfoy behind the hangings without anyone noticing (if he agreed, that was. He’d met your eyes once upon arrival, and then not again since). “Do you know what Apprenticeship Draco Malfoy is applying for? I just thought, you know, since you’re his head of house, and he mentioned you in the meeting…” 

Professor Slughorn followed your eye line, wherein Malfoy was still conversing with Eldred Worple and the dark-haired witch on his arm, looking more than slightly bored. “Mr Malfoy wants to be a Potions Apprentice,” he said. Potions.  _ What’s the big fucking deal about that? _ , you thought. But Slughorn continued; “Although he has decided not to undertake my intensive program. Not a good start, I’d usually say. But then, young Draco does seem to be the exception to many rules, doesn’t he?”

You weren’t exactly sure what he meant by this, but it did make sense, somehow, so you nodded. What didn’t make sense was the other bit.

“But Professor,” you said. “How can he possibly become an Apprentice if he’s not doing an intensive study?”

“ _ My _ , my dear, not ‘an’. Draco has made his own plans for an intensive study.” 

“May I ask what those might be?” 

Slughorn gave you an indulging smile, and softly shook his balding head, sheened pink with alcohol and heat.  _ Of course _ , you thought.  _ Slytherins _ .  _ Them and theirs, and all that.  _

“More mead, dear girl?” 

You shook your head. “No, thank you.” 

“I don’t suppose you could be tempted by my intensive program, instead?”

“Oh, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep up, sir.” 

“Nonsense, nonsense,” Slughorn chortled, and then coughed over an eager sip of his drink. You took the opportunity to slip away, eyes still trained on Malfoy’s willowy figure in the centre of the room.

_ Draco has made his own plans…  _

_ And why do you care what they are?, _ prompted the Sneakoscope.  _ Shut up _ , you replied silently. 

Or at least, you thought so, until; “Well, hello to you too.” 

You realised you’d crossed almost the entire length of the vast, crouching room, and had drawn level with one of the many glowing sconces about the room, lit with live, fluttering fairies. A dark haired boy in cerulean dress robes was lent against the wall below it. “Oh. Hi, Boot,” you said, deciding against explaining yourself and hoping he wouldn’t push it. 

He did not. “Where were you rushing off to?”

You craned a look at the hangings in the office’s far corner, squinting for the impression of a silhouette. No one seemed to be back there anymore. “Not sure,” you said honestly, joining him against the wall. 

“Drink?”

“Thanks,” you said. Terry plucked two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and handed one to you. You took it, but neglected to drink. 

“Started on your application yet?” 

_ Oh, fuck it.  _ You sipped delicately once, and then less so a second time. “Not in the slightest. You?”

Terry shook his head. “I’ve filled out my marks and everything, but that personal response is fucking vexing, you know?” 

“Yeah,” you agreed. “At least you’ve gotten that far. I haven’t even taken it out of the pocket of my robes.” 

“You know what they say. Procrastination is key to greatness.”

“Is that what they say? I could’ve sworn it was more prolific than that. Something about thrusting.”

“You Gryffindors always were the most uncouth of the lot, weren’t you?”

You hummed, and took another sip of champagne. Boot was quite a pleasant bloke, really. And it soothed you somewhat that he was a relative stranger, inept to your emotional cues. You didn’t feel so apprehensive about letting your eyes slide to Malfoy every now and then in his presence. 

“Oh well. I’ll have to get it sorted over the Christmas break, I suppose. Take McGonagall’s advice.”

“Are you staying?” 

Terry shook his head. He’d emptied his glass and swapped it for a full one, in which the liquid wasn’t ochre but pale violet, and spitting ever so slightly. “Mum wants me home. You?”

“Going home, yeah,” you said blankly. 

“And sounding ever so pleased about it,” Terry said. You snorted. 

“I am, really. It’s just… been a long first term.” 

“How so?”

You glanced once more at Malfoy, who’d rid himself of the company he’d seemed to find so soporific and was standing by the bar table with his arm slung lazily around Millicent Bulstrode. His expression was passive as Millicent conversed with Blaise Zabini, slim fingers coiled around the stem of a crystal flute so effortlessly it was borderline ridiculous. The glass was empty, and the alcohol appeared to have had a similar effect on Malfoy as it did you, because his mouth bore a mere whisper of its usual sardonic smirk. He looked, though still tidier than any around him, quite relaxed. His loose grip on Millicent was fond, the blond hair at the nape of his neck curling slightly in the curtained, lanterned heat of the office. Malfoy seemed happy. Or content, at least (for surely happiness was a touch too undignified) and this was not good, because it did nothing to quell the impetuous want in the pit of your stomach. 

The more you looked at him, the more the need to touch and taste and feel flourished, and the harder it resisted your efforts to shut it up.  _ You’re never drinking again _ , the Sneakoscope informed you. Though you were inclined to agree, you knew that that wasn’t the whole piece. Sure, the alcohol allowed you to look, perhaps, more freely than usual, but you suspected the coiling of your abdomen had more to do with the fact that Malfoy had discarded his collared outermost robes, exposing the tailored seam at his waist and the long, slim line of his throat. You were used to seeing him in shades of charcoal and deep green, but not like this. He looked…  _ very fit _ in the ivory shirt, and the soft grey trousers, and the robes adorned with sage. A faint blush of early-stage inebriation on his cheekbones. Not fair. 

“Hm?” said Terry.  _ Fuck _ . You scrambled for the thread of the conversation you’d abandoned, but must have floundered a second too long, because Boot now looked towards the cluster of Slytherins as well. 

You took a hasty sip of champagne. “Nice dress robes, Millicent’s got on,” you said lamely. 

They weren’t. Terry smiled. You thought for a second he was going to let it pass. And then; “Malfoy’s a strange bloke, isn’t he?” 

_ Oh. Yes _ . 

So much for an ineptitude to your emotional cues. Fucking Ravenclaws. Miniature Hermiones, the lot of them. 

“How so?” you said, struggling to keep the cadence of your voice indifferent. 

Terry cocked his head. His expression was untelling in a fashion you wished you could replicate, bearing no obvious suspicion. It didn’t hold any ostensible contempt, either. (You weren’t sure whether this surprised you or not. If Ron had said it, or Dean, it probably would’ve been a slight and definitely would’ve been followed by the phrase “sly prat”, or something of the likes. But, then again, you’d never quite been able to discern whether the Slytherin aversion ingrained to your own House seeped out to the others. Ravenclaws often seemed to get along with them fairly well. Hufflepuffs attitudes were usually more that of intimidation than dislike. 

It was a difficult piece though, because the events of recent years far surpassed petty House rivalries, and a principlist animosity towards Slytherin was an entirely different thing to the hatred many wizarding families felt towards Voldemort’s sympathisers, the Malfoy’s among them. Harry had appeased enough of the loathing at their respective trials for Malfoy himself to come back to Hogwarts, and his mother to return to Malfoy Manor (thanks, Probity). You suspected he was grateful for that, though he didn’t often show it, and this smoothed affairs between the Lion and the Serpent somewhat. But that still didn’t equate to any love lost between the Gryffindors, Malfoy, and Slytherin as a whole. And like you’d said, you were quite blind as to whether these attitudes were reciprocated in Ravenclaw Tower and wherever the Hufflepuff’s badger sett was.) 

Terry straightened his head. “Quiet, even when he’s speaking,” he surmised shrewdly, and you suddenly understood why Luna was in Ravenclaw, because it was exactly the kind of thing she would say. And it didn’t really make sense, but it also made sense perfectly. 

In true spirit of the occasion, the festivities continued in the Gryffindor common room once Slughorn’s office began to clear. Neville, looking exceedingly guilty, helped Seamus lug back an opulent selection of beverages, and Harry had to be carried through the portrait hole by Ron, who wasn’t fairing all that much better himself. Hermione cast a Muffliato charm on the dormitory stairs so as not to wake the sleeping juniors, which Dean broke almost immediately when he stumbled eagerly into the boy’s dorms and returned with a big wooden case and a stack of stiff, cardboard squares. 

“What the fuck?” marveled Ron, dropping Harry unceremoniously and pulling a disc of glossy black from within one of the sleeves. 

“Don’t touch them like that,” said Dean. “You’ll scratch them.” 

“What are they?” 

“I’ve seen these before,” you said. “They have music inside them.”

Dean chuckled. “Sodding Purebloods. Never have a clue. They’re records.” 

You frowned. Though you had two magical parents, you’d like to think you weren’t quite as hopelessly inept on the subject of Muggle affairs as Ron, who hadn’t even known what a fucking lightbulb was until several weeks ago. 

Ron looked highly suspicious. “How do they get the music inside without magic?”

“Nobody knows,” Dean said gravely. He pulled one of the records from its sleeve and rested it delicately on the circular platform inside the wooden box. 

“D’you think you can get this working for me, Hermione?” 

Hermione (the most sober of you all, which didn’t really count for much) frowned, inspecting the black coil that extended from the box and ended in several metal prongs. “Needs electricity, so I think a simple Baubillious should do.” 

She pointed her wand towards the plug, muttered the spell, and the black disc began to spin below the needle Dean placed on top of it. A low, three-note motif filled the common room. 

Hermione groaned. “Britney Spears, Dean?” 

Dean cranked one of the box’s circular knobs and the sound grew louder. “She’s really very good, Hermione,” he opined, pulling Seamus up to dance with him. 

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Ron said. 

“Not really,” you said. You probably would’ve been more stubborn, had you been sober. Though, you were inclined to thank Merlin you weren’t, because you might still be blushing at Terry’s sly  _ Malfoy’s-a-strange-bloke-isn’t-he _ if you hadn’t had alcohol to cushion the blow. 

Call it Gryffindor tenacity, but you’d pushed through the unease and made sure not to leave his side until you were convinced that the remark was prompted only by the lacking subtlety in your appraisal, and not any other suspicions. Simmering ones. Perhaps stemmed from seeing you descend the Astronomy Tower flushed and dishevelled and minutes after Malfoy. Once you were confident that the remark held no veiled meaning, you’d rejoined the Gryffindor crowd, and the event wrapped itself up soon after. 

(The eighth-year Slytherins were the first to go, much to Slughorn’s chagrin, sniggering and wrapped all around each other like an impeccably dressed centipede. People watched, as they were wont to do with enigmas, most likely wondering like you were what debauchery they were off to enjoy in that subterranean common room of theirs. Malfoy had spared you not so much as a glance as he left, stubbornly retaining his elegance despite the several glasses of champagne you’d watched him drink. Millicent had her arm curled about his waist, his was curled around Blaise’s, and ignominy was curled around yours.

The Sneakoscope had prodded that his apparent lack of interest in you was a good thing. When you’d asked why, it reminded you that eye contact was necessary for Legilimency, and he hadn’t met yours all night.  _ No eye contact = no mind reading = he wasn’t crouching in your inebriated subconscious as it fantasised about dragging him behind the curtains and snogging him _ , it calculated. A fair point, you had conceded. You’d felt his presence when sober. That time. When he’d said  _ you’re-thinking-about-me-again _ and you’d said  _ yes _ . Human, soft. Grey eyes watching from the back of your mind. But it did make sense that drunken stupor would make it easier for him to slip in undetected. So it was a good thing he hadn’t been trying. Yes, it was. And stop feeling disappointed.) 

Seventh years and a few select sixths trickled in and out of the common room amongst the eighths, those who had been invited to the Slug Club event disappearing into the dormitories to retrieve friends who had not. Luna climbed through the portrait hole at some stage, stone cold sober but making just as little sense as usual. Glasses were shared, bottles wrenched open, passed, and salt-tequila-lime strictly observed. Dean and Seamus only rented themselves apart so Dean could fiddle with the music, flipping over his glossy black circles and exchanging them for others, plying the rounded room and it’s dancing inhabitants with a steady stream of upbeat, commercial-sounding pop. 

Ron’s nose remained stubbornly wrinkled in suspicion whenever he looked at the record-box, but you rather liked it. It  _ was _ odd, and how  _ did _ they get music inside a piece of flat plastic? But everyone seemed to be having a good time and you were inclined to agree. 

Despite the thing in your stomach that was wriggling like a wriggling thing for reasons you refused to acknowledge. You thoroughly believed that you’d thought about Malfoy for enough of the night, and yet he refused to fuck off. 

_ You’re pathetic _ , informed the Sneakoscope after you lost the thread of your conversation with Neville once again.  _ It’s not my fault he looks so fucking good in his dress robes. The nasty prat _ , you contended. 

“Sorry, what was that?” you asked Nev for the third time a row, determined to listen when he repeated himself. 

But what it was, you’d never find out, because Harry, still sprawled on the ground near Neville's feet where Ron had dropped him, gave a sudden jolt. 

“Harry?” said Neville. “You right mate?”’

Harry did not answer, instead fumbling for his wand. Lids closed, eyes moving wildly beneath. The eighth years, gathered close around the record-box, seemed to notice his cavorting one after the other, last of all Dean and Seamus, who had to be rather persistently elbowed by Luna until they realised something was amiss. 

“Ron,” Hermione hissed. The tipsy flush on her cheeks was paling before your eyes, her fingers going stiff around Ron’s forearm. Harry jerked to his knees. Ron reached out to him with a tentative “ _ mate _ ” on his lips, hand pausing mid-gesture as green eyes opened wide. Harry pulled himself to his feet, and with a thrust of his arm and a muttered incantation, something dark—a wispy shadow—shot forward from his wand. It darted around the room, furling, leaving black curls in its wake, and then dissolved. Harry slumped back against the wall, breathing heavily. 

Silence. 

Ron’s hand hovered still. He spoke softly; “Was that a—”

“—a Revoco?” said Harry. He adjusted his glasses, crooked since he’d been deposited. “Yeah.” 

Dean lowered the volume on Britney Stick, or whatever the fuck her name was. Silence again. And then, with disbelief; “fuck, I did it.”

Dean’s face broke into a wide smile. He pushed past Ron’s outstretched arm, which dropped limply back to his side, and clapped Harry’s shoulder. “Well done, mate!” 

Harry smiled. Neville, Seamus and Lavender joined in the congratulations, despite looking rather confused. Non-Beatles. 

“That’s Divination done, Harry,” said Dean. “McGonagall’ll think Christmas came early.” 

“Well, maybe,” said Harry. “She said the Revoco isn’t always definite.” 

“But you feel it, don’t you?” Ron shifted on his feet, yet to join the circle of congratulators. “You’ve got it, haven’t you?” 

Harry paused. Looked away from Ron. Then nodded slowly. 

“What does it feel like?” Hermione was slowly unwrapping her fingers from Ron’s arm. 

Harry looked up again soberly. “Like… I can’t remember not knowing.”

“Not knowing what?” Hermione demanded. 

“I don’t know.”

“Well that’s very helpful, Harry,” she snapped, and turned for the boy’s dorms with a tug at Ron, shattering her own wards as she dragged him up the stairs. 

Silence. Again. 

Finally, Seamus said; “Why’s she gone and done her nut?” 

“Hermione can be very competitive,” Harry offered quietly. 

“Drink to that,” said Dean, not making much sense and not appearing to care. He raised his glass, others followed, everyone eager to return to the loud-music-laughter-drinking of minutes before. Dean flipped a disc and cranked the knob, the younger students resumed chatter (probably sick to the fucking back teeth of weird shit going on with the eighth years, and who could blame them?) and Lavender asked Harry playfully what it was about Divination that always seemed to send him into a fit. 

Harry gave a weak smile. He was still half-collapsed against the wall, looking dazed and confused and vaguely apologetic as he glanced at the dormitory stairs and the glimmering tatters of Hermione’s wards. You hadn’t moved either, not to congratulate him nor ask if he was alright, and were slowly realising that this was probably rather rude. 

You approached him tentatively. He straightened himself up. “Congratulations, Harry,” you said. 

Another weary smile. “Thanks.” 

“How’s it feel being the first?” 

“Second,” cut in a lilting voice. 

Harry rubbed his forehead. “Fuck, I’m too drunk for this,” he muttered. And then slightly louder; “What’s that, Luna?” 

Luna perched on the back of the common room’s largest covered armchair, legs crossed, Spectrespecs in place. “Second,” she said. “Sorry, Harry. I cast my first Revoco last week.”

You glanced at Harry, who’s brow was also furrowed in incredulity, and then back to Luna. 

“You’re serious?” you said. 

“Yes. I suppose I forgot to let you all know.” 

“You reckon,” you snorted softly, feeling irrationally resentful and sounding it just a little bit. Guilt prodded back at you at the sight of Luna’s wide, silvery eyes. “Good on you, Lu,” you amended. 

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Congratulations, you nut.” 

“What’s this?” said Dean. 

“Luna got Divination last week, and just forgot to tell any of us,” informed Harry. His eyes were still flickering to the dormitory stairs every now and again, but he looked distinctly happier. You wondered, pushing yourself to wonder through the fog of tequila and champagne, whether he was, for some reason, relieved not to have been the first. 

Dean blinked. Then said; “this really is a celebration, then,” and dragged Luna to dance with him, much to Seamus’ despair. 

“Fuck me,” muttered Harry. 

“Indeed,” you said. The knot that had settled itself in your stomach since he had cast his Revoco had neglected to loosen itself once it became clear he was in no kind of peril. Why was that, exactly? 

“‘Nother shot?” offered Seamus. 

“You really are a bad influence, you know?” said Harry, but took one. You shook your head. This time, when Seamus told you you were no fun, you had no wit in your arsenal to respond. The knot was growing ever tighter, and you suddenly wanted nothing more than to escape to the cold, the quiet, the vast blanket of stars above the Astronomy Tower. To be by yourself and think, or to be with Malfoy, and not think at all. 

“I’m going to bed,” you muttered. 

“Few too many?”

“Something like that.”

It was nothing like that. 

And it didn’t go away as you climbed the stairs to the girls dorms, and it didn’t go away when Hermione stormed in not half an hour later. The knot sat, tight as ever, when Lavender stumbled past your bed, locked in a giggly embrace with a seventh year boy hours after that. And it coiled tighter still in the pale hours of the morning, when you finally drifted into broken, nauseous sleep. 

xx

Despite the incontrovertible beauty of the Great Hall on Saturday afternoon, lunch was a rather subdued affair. Not even the tentative sunlight of the enchanted ceiling, casting soft, blunted gold upon flakes of magical snow, or the rich, heady pine aroma from the twelve soaring and lavishly decorated Noble Firs could rouse the eighth year table from its laconic hangover. The Slytherins hadn’t been roused from their dungeons at all, even though the carriages were departing for the train in less than half an hour. 

Peeves seemed to have figured out the state you were all in, because he took exceptional pleasure in chasing you down the corridors with a symphony of wooden-spoon-on-metal-pot as you deposited trunks for loading and collected last minute break-assignments. Infuriating dolt. 

The whole ordeal had given you a bastard of a head-ache, and it was impeding upon your enjoyment of your last meal before boarding the Express back to London rather significantly. That was, if the persistent nausea and the morning’s incidents hadn’t done the job already. Bloody Seamus. Bloody tequila. 

McGonagall had demanded a last meeting of the Beatles before you departed. She informed all relevant parties at breakfast that she wanted you in her classroom not a minute past ten, a turn of events that was most unhelpful to your pounding migraine. 

Just as Dean predicted, she had been very pleased to learn that two of her students had achieved the first stage of the Animagus transformation. In fact, as Harry and Luna had cast their Revocos and described to her in turn the innate and utter (and unhelpfully indescribable) fulfillment they felt, she had come dangerously close to out-right  _ joy _ . It was most disturbing. 

For multiple reasons. 

The most prevalent of all, you’d been forced to admit as you stared up at your canopy while listening to the faint chirping of dawn, was anxiety. And jealousy. You were jealous. Envious. Green. Fuck. 

Directing any kind of negative emotion towards Luna especially (beyond a somewhat-affectionate vexation at her more impractical excentricities) must’ve been some kind of moral atrocity. 

But really, honestly,  _ what the fuck _ ? You had no idea how Macmillan managed his usual jovial grin upon hearing the news, because you had been teetering dangerously close to hysteria ever since the alcoholic fuzz wore off around four am and you realized what had actually happened last night. Harry had achieved Divination. Luna had achieved Divination. You were nowhere near far off it. Clear-calm-empty your fucking arse, you were applying for an  _ Apprenticeship _ and were already being bested by two other students with no such intentions. 

McGonagall must’ve noticed your aura of bitter dismay, because she had called you back at the end of the session. (It had been a short one only, where she reminded you all to Divinate hard over the break and provided Harry and Luna a dried Shrivelfig leaf to practice with before they started on Mandragora next term.)

“You have a concern,” she had said. 

Deciding, without a better idea, to say exactly what you were thinking, you had chewed your bottom lip and gotten on with it. “I haven’t gotten Divination yet.” 

“I gathered as much,” said McGonagall, and you wished she wouldn’t. Sarcasm jarred your migraine most painfully. 

“I’m worried, Professor.”

“You have no reason to be.”

“But I haven’t—”

“Neither have most of your peers. Mr Potter and Ms Lovegood appear to be exceptions, not rules.”

You had clamped down on your lip with an inward exclamation. “But I want to be an Apprentice. Shouldn’t I be the exception?” 

“Did I not promise to warn you, should I find your progress lacking? Macmillan also plans to apply for an Apprenticeship, and he has not accomplished the first stage either.”

You had shaken your head. She wasn’t understanding, didn’t get it. You’d wanted, rather terrifyingly, to stamp your foot. Almost did, but instead insisted, in what was dangerously close to a wail; “please, Professor McGonagall. I’m not even close! I can feel it.” 

McGonagall had fixed you with a look so imploring that you suddenly wished you’d run from the classroom when you’d had a chance. 

“I see,” she said. 

“Please,” you said, gathering yourself and releasing your lip. “I understand what you meant, when you said that regardless of our acceptance at the end of the year, the knowledge we’d gain from an intensive study would still be worthwhile. But I don’t think I could…”  _ handle a rejection? Face the reality of not being an Apprentice? Fail? _ All hopelessly petulant arguments. “Just. Is it… you know, is it still worth trying, or should I come up with something else?”

McGonagall had crossed to her desk. “I stand by those words. But perhaps…” she said. Sat down. “Perhaps, it may have been promising to see some progress by now. From an aspiring Apprentice.” 

It was what you had expected. ‘ _ Utmost skill and dedication from my Apprentice, whomever they may be’ _ was achieving Divination weeks before anyone else. Or accidentally. While completely sloshed. It was not whatever you were; distracted, disjointed, barely able to sit with your thoughts for a minute. A head that only cleared when you were having completely amoral Astronomy Tower-sex with Draco Malfoy.  _ ‘Not Apprentice material’ _ , you’d imagined your letter saying, come the end of the year. It was what you’d expected. But fuck, if it didn’t feel like a punch to the gut coming from McGonagall.

Once again, your expression had betrayed you. 

“I don’t want you getting any ideas,” said McGonagall. “I am not dismissing you from this program, nor anything of the sort. I trust my judgement even if you do not, and I selected you for my intensive study for a reason.”

“Thank you,” you had said faintly. 

“You’re welcome,” McGonagall replied stiffly. “I want you to take the time over the Christmas break. Away from Hogwarts and whatever is distracting you from your Divination, and focus. I think all you really need, young lady, is some confidence in your own ability.” 

_ What a nice sentiment _ , you had thought, appreciating her words but knowing they were inaccurate. What you really needed was to not be shagging Malfoy. No shagging, no paranoia, no guilt. Clear head, Divination, Apprenticeship, thank you very much and suck on that, Macmillan. 

That was what Hermione would say. And you had a sneaking suspicion it was what Terry Boot would say, too. It was logical. It made a lot of ostensible sense. There was just the slight inconvenience that, try as you might, you couldn’t deny that you really, really  _ liked _ having completely amoral Astronomy Tower-sex with Draco Malfoy. No matter how much anguish it caused you. 

_ Clang clang clank _ . “Naughty kiddies, up past your bed times!” 

“Fuck off Peeves!” moaned Harry, slumped beside a dish of new potatoes. 

“Language,” came Hermione’s perfunctory scold. She was in a markedly better mood today than when she’d marched past your bed last night and thrown herself onto hers. Greeting Harry with a cheery  _ “good morning” _ and patting him encouragingly on the back when he cast his Revoco for McGonagall, she’d seemed determined to put last night’s slightly petty display behind her. Ron, you suspected, had already had words with Harry in the boys dorms, and may have even rejoined the party after you left, because nothing seemed amiss between the two of them either. You couldn’t blame either of them for feeling a little resentful, if that was what had happened. You didn’t really have much moral ground upon which you could stand. Dean’s completely and utterly good natured congratulations was more perplexing to you than a little indignation. 

“Professor?”

“If I’m not doing better after Christmas break, you’ll… you won’t spare my feelings, will you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. When term resumes, we can discuss this further. If you are still certain in your lack of progress, I would be more than happy to help you seek out other options for next year.”

“Right. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And don’t forget about your application.” 

The sodding application. How could you possibly forget. Having finally removed the blasted thing from the pocket of your robes this morning, you’d instead shoved it into the trousers you were wearing. Why you hadn’t packed it in your trunk with everything else you were bringing home for Christmas, you weren’t sure. There was something vaguely masochistic about the way you kept pulling it out to glance at it under the table, sending the Sneakoscope into a rattling frenzy every time you did. 

_ Why _ ... you gripped the parchment harder, wanting to feel the roughness and the sharp edges against your skin.  _ Why do you want to study Transfiguration? _

I don’t think I do. Bollocks. 

\- - -  _ Less common than the standard walnut wand, that of black walnut seeks a master of good instincts and powerful insight. Black walnut is a very handsome wood, but not the easiest to master  _ \- - - 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> expect the next chapter around: 30/9


End file.
